


Be My Terminator

by DoraTLG



Series: Tea Made of Fresh Herbs [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Character Death, Commander James Bond, Depression, Friends to Lovers, Hair-pulling, Hurt/Comfort, M is slightly bitchier than in canon, M/M, Masochism, Mental Health Issues, Not major though, Q is 16 when they do the do but it's legal, kids to adults, self destructive Q, you're going to suffer but you're going to be happy about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-16 07:50:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14807264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoraTLG/pseuds/DoraTLG
Summary: When they first met, Q was but a toddler with too much brain and too little social grace. James wonders if that ever changed.When they first met, James was just a boy filled with pain, rage, and doubt. Q wonders if that ever changed.Some scars heal slower than others, and some hearts hurt more than is socially acceptable. But life goes on, and there is always someone who will love you no matter what.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> OK, so let's get something straight: this fic started months ago as a way to say FU to the people who get angry if sex with a character under 18 isn't tagged as underage or even statutory rape (which happened to me with a fic that didn't include any sexual acts, not even a little bit). Yes, we get it, America, you have your ways, but the rest of the world is different and that doesn't mean wrong. I myself have avoided sex all my life and I'm fine, but I know people who started waaayyy too young and guess what - they're fine too. It's just sex. So yeah, my Q is an incredibly bright young man who has too much shit going on in his life that can scar him, and sex isn't on the list. This fic will NOT be tagged as underage nor statutory rape. Don't even bother asking for it.

James was bored.

He didn’t imagine his first meeting with his family after… the incident to be this boring. Sure, he was dreading it for weeks on end, but for quite different reasons. From TV and books he understood what social obligations his family would feel the need to abide, the number of relatives who will seek him out to sadly murmur their condolences or wish him a speedy recovery from his sorrow, or, in some cases, even give him money with a sound pat on the back and an uttered “be brave”. He was expecting all this with a twist in his stomach. What he was not expecting was that, after an hour long terror of accepting condolences for his parents’ death, the evening would turn so bloody _boring._

To be fair, it wasn’t about him. His cousin eleven or so times removed (he still had no idea what that meant, just that they were basically sharing less blood than many English couples, those inbreeding bastards) was marrying a man twice her age – and James would find it weird if he himself didn’t find him unfairly handsome. His aunt dragged him along to cheer him up and introduce him to the family he from a bigger part never met, because Scottish people had some weird fetish with family bonding and he was starting to scare her.

James was pretty sure his aunt was starting to regret her decision to take him in. He didn’t blame her. A fifteen year old boy whose parents just died and who was dragged half through Britain to live with an unknown relative wasn’t the best company, and he was just lucky she thought all his moodiness and strangeness was caused by grief. Little did she know he was a strange boy ever since he was old enough to talk.

James never felt quite the way he was supposed to, according to books. As a child, he used to read a lot – he used to be exhausted after a day of running around Skyfall, helping his father and their staff, and books didn’t require much energy. He learned most of what he knew about the world through books. He learned about countries he never went to, about people he never met, about social conventions and laws of the world his family didn’t consider important to share with him because they were so fundamental. Like that death was the worst thing in the world. Murder was the worst crime. Things that would never reach James in his little bubble up in the Highlands.

Until they did.

Still, though. His understanding of death was quite different than what the books, and now people around him, were trying to show, as if the two didn’t quite align. Yes, death was the worst thing that could happen to a human being, since it _ended_ said human being’s existence. In his book, though, unless death meant the beginning of something horrible, like burning in hell, he didn’t see it as such a terrible faith. And yes, the death of his parents left him devastated and crippled by pain, but he didn’t really see how it affected anyone who didn’t know them. Yes, if his parents didn’t die in an accident that had nothing to do with anyone else, he would hate whoever would cause it. But why would anyone else have to care? No one cared when someone from the other side of the planet died of pneumonia. Hundreds of people were dying every second and James didn’t give a rat’s arse. Death seemed to be too normal to be such a crime.

Yes, he thought. If someone had killed his parents, he would have the right to hate said someone, but none of these people who met his parents maybe twice in their lives would have the same right. And every time he thought about that scenario, his insides would knot in rage and he knew that such a hatred would cause him to seek revenge, and he knew that it would make him kill. And then the loved ones of that murderer would have the right to hate him and he would understand.

But, he supposed, that would just make life a rather unpleasant circle of revenge and death. He wasn’t really in the market for that.

His musings were interrupted when someone joined him at the table he was sat at, now completely empty as everyone was dancing and walking around, eating and chatting (something James found extremely frustrating, since people could say a hundred words and never convey a single thought). The newcomer had dark locks of badly tamed hair, an ill fitting suit, large hazel eyes and about three feet eight in height.

The boy, aged around five in James’ estimate, sat down right next to him at the round table, half facing him, and snatched the phone James had lying by his cleared plate. James’ first reaction was slightly panicked as he didn’t take kindly to his things being messed with, but after he straightened up to take it back, he realized that the child was probably as bored as him and simply wanted a distraction. After he’d realize that James’ Nokia 3310 was as boring as this party, he’d give it back. James wasn’t afraid of any physical damage if the child dropped the phone – he was pretty sure the damn thing could stand being tossed off of a plane and still be functioning after landing on concrete.

He watched as the child wordlessly began typing on the thing as if he knew what he was doing. James waited, but after a minute or so it became quite clear that the child was happy with his new toy. He considered moving so he could watch what he’s doing, out of curiosity and also caution, but then mentally waved it off as too much effort. What damage could the boy do anyway? So he just sat back and went back to lazy people watching, now combining it with babysitting.

The boy played by him for about ten minutes when he first spoke. He looked up at James and waited for the older boy to realize he’s being watched, and then James’ blue eyes jumped to him and the boy asked: “What songs do you like?”

James thought about it for a second.

“Sex Pistols.”

The boy scrunched his nose, frowned, looked into the distance, then tilted his head in thought, and finally went back to the phone with a somewhat determined expression. Next thing, the phone started making the most annoying sounds that come from punching in a number, every button having a different frequency, and James wanted to stop him from calling Sweden but then realized that no number has more than fifteen digits and the boy was already reaching twenty. He watched him with a small frown, and then decided he just couldn’t be bothered and went back to what he was doing, muting out all the sounds, which he was already doing with the wedding band, which was quite frankly atrocious.

After about ten more minutes, the boy spoke out again.

“James Bond?”

James startled at that and looked at the child with a surprised expression. The boy was looking at him with those big eyes that yet had to wait for the face to grow into them, and with his hand outstretched towards him, handing him the phone. He took it.

“How do you know my name?” he asked. The boy shrugged.

“Mum told me.”

It took James a second to realize he must be the talk of the gathering, with his dead parents, the poor orphan, what a tragedy. He looked down at the phone. It was littered with weird sequences of hashtags and numbers he didn’t understand.

“Press play,” the boy told him. James obeyed and the phone started playing an obnoxious, high pitched version of God Save The Queen. James blinked a few times, staring at the little square device.

“You can use it as a ringtone,” the boy said matter of factly. James looked at him.

“How did you do this?” he asked him. The boy just shrugged his shoulders again.

“Each tone has a number. When you remember the numbers and put them in a correct order, they make a melody.”

James just stared for a little longer, not understanding how a five or so year old boy could work out the maths behind that, and then make his phone play a three minute song in ten minutes. The phone was still going off in his hand.

Before he could think of something to say – thanks, praise, whatever –, a woman appeared behind the boy, looking resigned.

“Quinn, here you are! I hope he wasn’t too much bother,” she turned to James with a worried expression, as fabricated as her neon green dress.

“No, it’s fine,” James said, still dumbfounded. Quinn, as it turned out to be the boy’s name, rolled his eyes while his mother couldn’t see him, and hopped off the chair.

“See ya,” he said and walked off before his mother could do anything. She was left to follow him to their table.

James was suddenly very sorry he didn’t pay more attention to the boy, because he might have just turned out to be the most interesting thing about this night.

The phone stopped ringing then, with the last dysphonic notes leaving the kind of aftertaste only a Sex Pistols song could.

***

The next time they met, it was at James’ birthday party.

Well, in theory.

It was actually a ‘joint’ party of his and his uncle. See, his uncle’s birthday was half a year prior and James’ was a day earlier. But since James was an eighteen year old and only recently joined the family, as it were, he wasn’t the one whose guests were attending. Officially to everyone invited, this was his uncle’s birthday party. James was an accessory that hanged in the background and who had two people congratulating him – both hastily giving him a fiver when they found out from his aunt that this is actually his birthday. Proper birthday, not ‘this is the only time the family can get together so it’s on my nephew’s big day but fuck him’ birthday.

He was well in his third glass of wine by the time the little boy found him. There was a huge table dedicated to gifts that was bending under the weight of gift baskets and alcohol and all those presents people buy when they don’t know someone well enough to buy a proper one. James wasn’t jealous. He was just jaded. Jaded and bitter, and wondering what his birthday would be like if his parents were still alive. Probably the same as all his birthdays were when he lived at Skyfall, but with a bit more importance to it. Maybe he would spend the evening drinking wine with his parents, talking about everything and nothing by the fireplace with their two German Shepherds lying by their feet. He heard from a classmate that that’s what he did with his parents. James hated how his heart hurt every time he thought of that impossible scenario.

He didn’t recognize the boy right away. At first he was alarmed by the fact that an eight year old would be permitted to stay up so late at an adult themed party, and that he was basically unsupervised. Then, when he looked him over in detail, noticing the dark curls and hazel eyes still slightly too big for his head, he realized that he’d seen him before, and remembered the ringtone he actually missed after his phone fell into Thames.

“Hi James,” the boy – Quinn, if James remembered correctly – smiled. “Happy Birthday.”

James raised his eyebrows in surprise. Quinn’s mother didn’t wish him anything, so he found it strange that her child would. But maybe she knew and just didn’t care.

“How do you know it’s my birthday?” he asked. Quinn shrugged.

“I heard your aunt telling that lady who looks like a hedgehog.”

James was startled into a laugh. Indeed, the second woman who came to congratulate him did have a strange face, but he didn’t pay her much attention. He didn’t even know if she was a family member or a friend. Anyway, this is England, even friends could share more blood than some members of extended family.

“Well, thanks,” he finally said. Quinn wasn’t paying him much attention, instead studying the reflection on his almost empty glass. James supposed that with a brain like his, he must be easily distracted. “Why are you up so late?”

“Mum and dad have been trying to decide who takes me home, but they keep forgetting to finish the conversation. I don’t think any of them wants to leave.”

James looked around, trying to find said parents, and caught a glimpse of a woman he vaguely remembered as Quinn’s mother dancing by the live band. Oh yes, they had a band.

He supposed he wasn’t the only one people forgot about.

He made a decision and stood up.

“Come on, I’ll take you home,” he said. Quinn looked up at him, then stood up without a word and followed James through the crowd.

It was a matter of seconds to convince Quinn’s mother to let him take him wherever it was they were spending the night, and James felt irritation crawl all over him at this woman who clearly didn’t care much for the safety of her only son. He earned several heartfelt thanks from both Quinn’s mother and father, who clearly were having too much fun to leave, and it worked out pretty well for him since he definitely was not. Not five minutes later he and Quinn were outside, breathing the fresh evening air.

“So, you know the way?” he asked. Quinn nodded and took off south. James followed suit.

The party was held just outside Birmingham in the suburbs near Dudley to cut costs. The streets were completely empty, only the odd car driving past every once in a while. James was still tense, turning after every sound, hyperaware of the fact that he had a child to protect. It was such a strange feeling – he never cared much for his surroundings when he was alone, but suddenly he tensed up at every new car driving past, thinking – what if the driver loses control and hits the boy? What if they’re some sick bastard and hit him on purpose?

He had to shake his head to clear his thoughts. He couldn’t believe he was this paranoid. Everything was fine. Serial killers weren’t at every corner looking for an eight year old to kill. They’re in Dudley, for Christ’s sake.

“So how old are you, anyway?” asked James to break the silence. He had a strange urge to make sure the boy liked him, as if his worth was depending on it. He supposed children liked good people and disliked bad people, and as much as he felt like a real bastard sometimes, he didn’t want to be a bastard to someone so young and innocent.

“Almost eight,” Quinn said offhand. Seven then. And up after midnight. James didn’t know much about child care, but he knew that he was asleep by eight every night when Quinn’s age.

“How did you like the party?” he tried to keep the conversation going. Quinn just shrugged.

“Boring.”

“Even the band? The cake?”

“Well the cake didn’t do anything funny, did it? And the band was too loud.”

James found himself chuckling again. Yes, quite. There really wasn’t much to keep a child occupied. He at least had the wine to keep him in a buzz.

Quinn started swaying halfway there. James picked up on it quite soon and frowned.

“Are you OK?” he asked. Quinn nodded, but then swayed again. James realized that the night hour must be catching up to the boy. “You must be exhausted. Can I carry you?”

Quinn stopped, seemed to think about it, then reluctantly nodded. James considered the best way to pick him up. If he was on his back, he might let go if he felt asleep. So he scooped him up bridal style and started walking.

“Just tell me where to turn, OK?” he requested and Quinn nodded sleepily. He was blessedly light, lighter than most of the equipment at James’ local gym, and the hotel he directed James to was close enough that he never became a burden in his arms. Once they were inside and found Q’s family’s room, James put him down to sleep.

While the boy fell asleep instantly, James was struck with the realization that he had no idea what to do now. He could go back to the party, but beside the fact that he used Q as an excuse to leave, he also had a responsibility now, didn’t he? He couldn’t just leave a seven year old alone in a strange hotel room. He had no idea when his parents would come. What if Q woke up in the middle of the night, or better yet early morning, and panicked? James didn’t like those odds. So the best thing now would be for him to stay where he was, and maybe get some sleep. The room had only one king sized bed for the couple, and Q was sleeping on the couch that was turned into a somewhat decent bed, so the only place left was an old armchair by the window or the floor.

James decided that sleeping on the floor might be better for his back, but with his tendency to sleep on his side, it would most definitely be horrible for his ribs, so he folded himself on the burgundy chair, pushed a pillow he stole from the bed between his head and the backrest, folded his arms, and closed his eyes.

He woke up while the sun was still down to the sound of two people stumbling in drunk. They made the usual fuss about him sleeping in such an uncomfortable position and how thankful they are and so on, and he smiled politely and played the mental game with them – he always felt as if he was playing tennis, catching all the pleasantries on his racket, sending them back, never actually listening to them. He hated it, hated how people pretended to care, pretended to be nice. He was sick of it. So when they offered him to stay, that they will pay for another room, he just smiled and said he’ll be fine, their place isn’t that far away… knowing that it was three miles east and that he would have to run or he would freeze in the foggy English coldness that never went away, no matter what time of the year it was.

On his run home he let himself be sentimental for a while, and thought about his life. He reckoned that at eighteen, he ought to give it at least a bit of thought. He let himself think about his parents, sped up, went out of breath until his lungs and throat hurt. He remembered all his childhood dreams, what he used to want to do, who he used to want to be. He wondered what would actually be of him if he continued on the boring same old path he was on now.

And then he made a decision.

Life could end at any moment. He could be killed by a car now, or die in a bar brawl tomorrow, and have nothing to show for his life than a bunch of papers from his college. He applied for a few universities he didn’t want to go to, to study subjects he didn’t feel passionate about. If he had a short life ahead of him, he wanted it to be meaningful. If he had a long one, he didn’t want it to be full of unfulfilled dreams and regretted decisions.

That’s why a week later, James Bond enrolled with the Navy and became an officer.

***

It started with a worried phone call (all the phone calls were worried now) and a mention that he should definitely go see family while he’s in Portsmouth.

James was in the Navy for three years before he was cleared for active duty outside of the UK. Then another year of waiting around, paperwork, moving from place to place, and finally at year five, his first mission overseas. From that day on, his aunt seemed to realize that dying at sea or in some far off country was a huge possibility for her nephew, and that as the last Bond, he would end a whole branch of her family tree. Her phone calls became more frequent and she became almost possessed with the news anytime the NAVY was mentioned.

He was in Portsmouth for a week, just a little break from constant sailing. Most of his colleagues left immediately to be with their families, but James didn’t bother. He knew that staying in one place with a nice bed and homecooked meals would make it so much harder to leave, and he didn’t fancy listening to his aunt all day long. With age, she was becoming more and more annoying. He felt bad for not spending time with her when he could, but not bad enough to tolerate her for more than her operator’s roaming deal would allow.

But when she called and heard he was in Portsmouth for just a few days, she directed him to family, and that family happened to be the little dark haired boy and his parents, and James’s curiosity made him knock on their door two hours later. He wondered what Quinn would look like now. How old was he? Eleven? Twelve? Was he still a genius or did that go away like with that kid from Two and a Half Men?

He didn’t have to wonder for long. The door opened and he was standing in front of Quinn’s mother, just like he remembered her, if not a little more wrinkly.

“Hello, Mrs. Ronkswood,” he greeted with the name his aunt gave him. “My aunt told me she called you? I’m James, I don’t know if you remember me.”

The last part of the sentence was lost in the woman’s recognition, and she pulled him in, saying that yes, of course she remembers him, such a nice lad, why didn’t he come sooner, and so fetching in his uniform, what a nice boy Alex has, and oh he has to forgive her, forgetting about his parents like that…

James just smiled and let himself be dragged in, hoping that he’ll at least get some decent food out of this.

He went through all the motions of a good guest, sat down, had tea, talked about his aunt. Mrs. Ronkswood kept going to the kitchen to stir something or other and James could smell beef and spices and hoped it wasn’t a curry. He’d had enough curry for a lifetime with the NAVY. Way too much curry. He’d lived and killed ankles deep in curry.

But he wouldn’t tell that to a nice middle aged English lady in Portsmouth, so when she served him curry, he ate the goddamn curry. And complimented it.

“Quinn!” she called towards the ceiling and James had honest to god butterflies when he realized the boy was in the house. He never experienced such true and easy affection towards anyone but his parents, and it scared him a bit. He only saw the boy twice in his life. He supposed that’s what children do – they are cute and innocent, and they make you fall in love with their honest hearts, so you want to see them grow and you’re happy they’re happy. Or James was developing some mother hen instincts and should go into midwifery instead of the Royal Navy.

Quinn appeared in the door of the kitchen a few moments later. He was just as James remembered him, but incredibly different at the same time. The same dark curls, the same hazel eyes, still slightly too big, or maybe that’s just how they always will be… but five years made the little boy grow in height and nothing else. He was as lanky as a baby giraffe, with long limbs and slender torso, and James immediately felt a strong urge to feed him all his curry. Which, as he later found out, wouldn’t have helped – Quinn ate three times as much as him and it looked like that was just his normal portioning.

The boy’s – teen’s, James reminded himself – eyes stopped on him, and Quinn assessed him like one assesses an IKEA furniture – with a dash of scepticism, but mild approval. James couldn’t tell if he knew who he was. But just before he could ask, or maybe introduce himself, Quinn answered that question.

“You’ve changed,” he said.

“Quinn, that’s not polite,” his mother reprimanded him, and by the tone of her voice James deduced that this wasn’t the first time she had to tell him that. He didn’t mind, though. He liked that the boy didn’t lose his honesty with age.

“You’ve changed, too,” he said. Quinn frowned a bit deeper.

“Your change is worse.”

After that, he sat down, ignoring his mother. James was doing the same, while wondering what Quinn’s assessment of him meant.

Quinn’s appetite was truly admirable. He ate like a starved wolf, to the point where James was looking for signs of beef coming out of his ears, but somehow the food all stayed inside his lithe body. James made a mental note to never think that skinny people didn’t eat as a rule, because if they all worked like Q did, they would have to eat a cow every day to gain some muscle. He also kicked himself for every time he thought negatively of a fat person.

“So where are you going next, James?” asked Mrs. Ronkswood and James’ head snapped back to her. He finished his portion long ago and now was staring at Quinn in fascination bordering on worry as the boy finished his second plate.

“Tuareg,” he lied seamlessly. “We’re helping to restore peace during the rebellion.”

“Oh, that sounds terribly dangerous,” Mrs. Ronkswood said, not knowing that compared to James’ real mission, Tuareg would be a pleasure cruise. Quinn, on the other side of the table, looked up and fixed his gaze on James’ face, and the older man realized that Quinn knew that he was lying. He braced himself for the questions, knowing that he can lie his way out of anything and if not, then he’ll just give the simple answer – that all his missions are classified. But Quinn never asked any questions. eHejjjjjjjuiiiii He just stared at him for a moment, then looked down at his plate, found it empty, and reached for another scoop of rice.

James felt sick just looking at the amount of food he consumed.

***

He didn’t stay for long, but assured Mrs. Ronkswood that he’ll be in touch the whole week. He hoped that she’d forget and he never had to show up again, because if there was something James hated more than bullet wounds, if was small talk. Mrs. Ronkswood, as a true English woman, was exceptionally good at small talk, and through the whole three hour visit, she and James didn’t exchange a single useful information.

As he was getting up to leave, Quinn turned to his mother and asked if he could go with him, have a look around the ship. After James, intrigued, promised that Quinn is no bother and that he’ll take care of him, she gave her permission.

Quinn put on a big black hoodie and they walked outside into the sunny street.

“I can’t actually let you see the ship,” James said as they walked towards the main road. It was a beautiful summer day, the temperature almost reaching twenty five degrees thanks to the clear sky and sea breeze.

“I know,” Quinn said offhandedly and James decided that in the future, he’ll always give him the benefit of the doubt instead of treating him as a normal person.

“Then why are we going there?” he asked nonetheless, realizing that he lost his upper hand. Not that he ever had it with Quinn. But he had it with everyone else, and the loss of it made him uneasy.

“I just wanted to get out without her snooping.”

“Your mother?”

“No, Mother Theresa,” Quinn glared at him in that way that suggested James must know what an idiot he’s being. James had to admit that was a fairly obvious assumption.

They walked past little local shops, out onto the main road where the local shops changed to Primark and Sainsbury’s, and then crossed the town towards the docks. Quinn was leading the way, completely silent until they reached the port.

“Want some ice cream?” James asked when he saw an ice cream van parked some odd twenty yards from them. Quinn  shrugged in affirmative and James took out his wallet and bought them two flakes. They walked by the beach, eating the ice cream, and James wondered if Q would need two more to feel satisfied, judging by his table manners.

“Can you even eat these?” Quinn asked when he was halfway through his ice cream.

“What do you mean?” James frowned. Quinn just pointed at his chest, waving his flake to take in James’ body.

“Aren’t you supposed to live on spinach or something?”

James laughed and took a bite off his ice cream. “I’m not on a diet, if that’s what you’re asking. I have a physically demanding job. Muscles are a by-product.”

“A nice by-product,” James heard Quinn murmur under his breath, but didn’t ask what he meant. The boy was probably reaching the age when he wanted to look like film stars, and honestly looked like a stick figure. James wasn’t one for inspirational speeches though, so he just let it go.

“What are you going to do today then, when you successfully dodged your mother?” he asked instead, and Quinn shrugged again. Shrugs seemed to be his favourite response to everything.

“I don’t know, probably just walk around. Getting some fresh air,” the way he said it made it look like he didn’t think much of fresh air. “Parents are always trying to get me outside so I figured it’d be nicer to be out here with someone rather than alone.”

“You don’t have any friends to go out with?” James asked. He had almost finished his ice cream, already starting on the cone. Quinn gave him the look from before.

“Do I look like someone who has friends that spend a lot of time outside? I’m not really the type. I’m happy inside. My parents, however, think that it’s unhealthy and that I need to be more sociable.”

James tried not to agree with them but couldn’t. He was definitely of the opinion that children should play outside. That’s how he spent his childhood.

Quinn must have seen it on his face. “It’s boring. I need something to work on.”

“Like what?” James asked with a curious frown.

“I have my projects.”

James raised his eyebrows and Quinn caved.

“Computers,” he explained, and James wasn’t at all surprised. Every kid nowadays seemed to understand computers, and Quinn could do more with his phone as a five year old than James could even now, so it was clearly his natural habitat.

“And your parents don’t want you to do these projects?” he asked, hoping to understand more. Quinn laughed bitterly.

“They think I’m addicted,” he said. “The thing is, I can easily go without computers as long as I can write code even on a napkin. It’s not the technology that I need, it’s what the technology DOES. I don’t need MySpace or games, I can…” he suddenly stopped, as if realizing he talked too much, and cleared his throat, looking around himself. His ice cream melted into the cone and some started leaking onto his hand. “They don’t understand what I can do, they don’t think I can build my future on it. But I can.”

James thought back to when he was twelve – it still hurt him to do so – and how he didn’t know what his future held then, and didn’t now. If Quinn was already this confident, if he knew what he would do with his life, that was commendable.

“So you want to go to uni?” he asked, drawing what he thought were logical conclusions. Quinn, to his surprise, just scoffed.

“Universities can’t teach me anything. I don’t need to get into a forty thousand quid debt just for a piece of paper.”

“Can you do what you want without that paper?” James asked sceptically. Quinn just shrugged again, avoiding answering by drinking his ice cream, then licking the dried, sticky substance off his fingers. James took that as a sign that the conversation is over, and headed towards the sea to wash his hands in the water splashing against a brick knee-wall that parted the sea from the foot path. Quinn followed suit and they both sat on the wall for a while, watching the seagulls circling above the ships.

James thought about making small talk, but something about their conversation told him that Quinn would be just as pleased by that as he himself would be. And anyway, being silent with Quinn was enjoyable. There were no awkward pauses because there was no need to be talking all the time, as if human connection could only be achieved through words.

Quinn got up after a while, proving that he can’t sit still for too long, and started walking up and down the narrow wall. He almost lost his balance several times, swaying in the strong breeze, hastily stretching his long limbs to steady himself. James had to laugh, and Quinn glared at him.

“Show us what you can do then!” he challenged him and James raised his eyebrows in amusement. Then he uncurled his legs from under himself, propped himself up on his arms, and slowly raised his legs until he was in a handstand. Then he ‘walked’ up and down the wall, doing his damnest not to end up in the sea. When he lowered his legs and stood up normally, Q was openly gawping at him.

“Well that’s just unfair!” he exclaimed and James laughed.

“I can teach you if you want.”

Q just laughed incredulously. “Are you crazy? I can’t do that!”

“Of course you can,” James said light heartedly. “Come on, I’ll help you. Let’s go to the beach.”

They walked to the nearest strip of sand they could find, and James taught Quinn how to get up on his hands, and then held his legs. He laughed when Quinn fell and got sand everywhere, and Quinn took a handful and quickly tossed it into James’ trousers, and James was too lost in having a good time to stop him. He laughed with the boy and felt younger than he felt in years. He felt his age.

They ended up walking back towards the town when the sun started setting down, moaning about the sand itching in every possible crack of their body. They were both smiling the whole time, as if they forgot to school their impressions, as if they were unaware of it. James walked Quinn home just as the sun set behind the sea and the sky turned red.

“I’m here until Friday, if you want to escape your parents again, call me,” James said before Quinn opened the front door, and the boy nodded. They exchanged numbers and James left.

The few days that James spent in Portsmouth, he spent them with Quinn. They ate Quinn’s favourite take out, because, as it turned out, Mrs. Ronkswood was an exceptionally bad cook and everything she made eventually turned either into curry or, as Quinn called it, an abomination that smelled of burned garlic. James taught Quinn some exercises and Q seemed to discover a liking for working out. James found out why when Quinn’s eyes glazed over while they ran along the beach, or when he held his legs while Quinn was doing curl ups, and asked why that was.

“I like how monotone it is. I start thinking about code after a while. It clears my mind. I like that.”

James took it as a good thing. Maybe Quinn would stop being such a hermit thanks to him.

But Quinn also taught James some things, or at least tried to – James couldn’t follow that quickly. He knew one thing though – Quinn really was a genius. He was quick to learn anything James threw his way, and every time James would mention a term or a practice from his life at sea, Quinn would come the next day knowing even more about it than James did, apparently studying on it at home with access to the internet.

When Friday came, James was honestly reluctant to leave.

“You have my number,” James said before boarding the ship. Quinn nodded. The hat James impulsively gave him as a keepsake almost fell off his head.

“As long as you don’t drop it in the Pacific,” Quinn nodded cheekily and it took James until he was half up the plank to turn and stare at him. He never mentioned where he was going apart from that one time he lied about his next mission being in Tuareg. He didn’t need to cross Pacific to get to Tuareg, but he did need to cross it to get to their real mission. Quinn just smirked.

“Bye, James,” he said and turned to leave. James stared after him for a few seconds, until Alec Trevelyan coughed to get his attention, and James stopped blocking the traffic.


	2. Chapter 2

They would talk on the phone about once a month at first. They didn’t have much to talk about, and they quickly realized that just as they didn’t talk in person, they had nothing to say over the phone. James couldn’t talk about his job, and Quinn’s whole life revolved around computers, which James honestly didn’t care about and Quinn knew that. So if one of them called, they talked about what happened at home since they last spoke, and as Quinn was getting older, they’d talk about politics or books. James started reading the same books as Quinn just so they had something to talk about. It worked. Until James’ phone was shot, together with him.

Maybe if he still had the Nokia 3310, it would have stopped the bullet.

They sent him home to Birmingham to recover from his wounds. A bullet wound in his right thigh, surrounded by deep scratches from the splintered phone; seven knife grazes on his chest and hands, one only very nearly missing his brachial artery; and so many deep bruises that a third of his body shined like a sick rainbow. Estimated recovery time: one month. Estimated muscle recovery time: way too long.

James’ first brush with death, however, didn’t feel that traumatic.

Yes, he had nightmares about being shot and about the knife flying just millimetres from his face, but those were more of a nuisance than real trauma. He woke up disgruntled, growled into his pillow, and then went to sleep again, hoping that the dream would go away. It wasn’t half as bad as everyone claimed.

What made him more irritated than anything was the fact that lying in bed was his least favourite activity in the world unless he was fully functional and accompanied by a naked body. He was in pain and bored, and had only been two days. He had to stay in the hospital for a week before he’d be released into home care, and he was already dreading being his aunt’s patient. That woman was a menace when she had access to strong painkillers.

It was on the third day when Quinn walked into the room. James shared it with three other people, two of them women who went through abdominal surgeries to treat their endometriosis, and who made James glad that he was just a soldier and not a woman. He’d rather get shot a few times than going through what they were describing. Quinn walked in with his usual lazy stroll, a messenger bag across his shoulders, surely containing the laptop Quinn got for his fourteenth birthday.

“What the hell are you doing here?” James asked, waking from his slumber. Quinn put the bag on the floor by the bed and sat on the chair next to it.

“Nice to see you too, James,” he said, settling down.

“How did you know I was here?” James tried to prop himself up and hissed when his whole body protested.

“I tried calling you yesterday and couldn’t reach you. So I called your aunt and she told me you are here.”

James gave him a no nonsense look. Quinn tried calling him many times when James was on a mission and couldn’t answer for days. The younger boy met his gaze steadily and faux innocently.

“Do you keep tabs on me, Quinn?” James asked, thinking of the computer in Quinn’s bag.

“Don’t be ridiculous, James, that would require illegal hacking,” Quinn said and James was absolutely sure that was exactly what Quinn was doing.

“We’ll talk about it later. Does your mother know you are here?”

Quinn was now studying James’ body, all the visible wounds and the bandages peeking out from the thin blanket.

“Stop staring, Quinn,” James said and Quinn’s gaze snapped up to his eyes.

“I told her I’m going for a day trip to London. I’ll get a night train home.”

James wanted to ask why Quinn wouldn’t tell his mother that he was seeing him, but maybe it was because he didn’t feel like explaining that his friend almost died somewhere in Africa. Quite understandable.

“Do you need something? Water?” Quinn asked and James nodded, gratefully drinking when Quinn brought him a cup full of tap water. Quinn slipped one hand under the older man’s head and held it up while holding the cup in his other hand. James felt like an invalid.

“You’re stronger,” he said when they were done and Quinn was putting the cup on the bedside table.

“Yeah,” he answered simply and James supposed it was because he kept at his training. Id didn’t make him particularly bulkier, but Quinn did look like he was growing into his body, and he wasn’t so awkwardly lanky anymore. He was still slim and looking like he could be easily broken, but at least he didn’t give off the impression that he might knock something over, possibly himself.

And he kept staring at James’ wounds, transfixed.

“Quinn?” James asked, slowly. “Do you like that I’m injured?”

Quinn snapped his gaze up immediately, having the decency to blush.

“No, James, I’m…” he stopped, trying to find the right words, quickly realizing he couldn’t, and blushed more. James frowned, confused. Before he could grill the boy, though, the nurse came in with lunch, and he was too starved to ignore her. His calorie intake went from three thousand a day to two thousand a day, and he felt the deficit very acutely. He knew that after lunch, he’d be a much better company.

He wasn’t wrong. He was given the choice between lasagne and pre-packaged sandwiches, and he chose the latter out of experience. They were slightly dry, but had flavour, which couldn’t be said about anything that was prepared in the hospital kitchen, and he could hide a few of them for later. He managed to get two packs instead of one from the nurse by shamelessly flirting with her, and when she left, Quinn pulled another pack from somewhere.

“You thief,” James accused him, but outstretched his hand to receive the sandwiches. Quinn raised his eyebrows.

“I’m watching out for you, be nice,” he handed him the food and sat back to watch him eat.

After that – thanks to James’ better mood – they talked. And after that, James fell asleep and Quinn took out his notebook and sat by his bed until he woke up again. He only left when the sun set.

“Don’t die,” he said with a small smile when he was leaving, and James flipped him off.

He didn’t show up again. He didn’t call. And James tried not to be jaded about that.

He was sent out again after two months of physiotherapy. He landed in hospital again a year later, with a concussion, three broken bones, and death toll of seventeen men gained in half an hour. He stopped counting his total about a year prior.

Quinn would call during that year, but he fell silent while James was injured. He called again when he was out on a mission again, as if nothing happened, but James knew. James knew that Quinn knew.

The day James’ unit landed in Portsmouth again was the day of James’ twenty seventh birthday. He reached the rank of commander three months prior, and was entitled to leave the barracks for forty eight hours, knowing that he would have nowhere to go unless he found a pretty thing to spend the night with.

He thought about going to see Quinn. He supposed the boy would know about his arrival. They haven’t spoken in a few weeks though and James was painfully aware of the fact that Quinn wasn’t a child anymore, and that their relationship was growing cold. So instead of going to the Ronkswoods’ house, he made his way to the nearest nightclub with every intention to drink himself into a better mood, and having sex with anyone who was willing.

Portsmouth night life was pretty good for such a small town, mostly because of the Navy visitors and students. James walked into the first night club he found, knocking three shots of tequila off the bat. The place was lively and full of students, with a few of James’ colleagues here and there. James knocked the drinks hoping that the alcohol would pick up his mood, but he underestimated the magical power of tequila, the drink of rage and bad decisions.

He realized where the night was going when a beautiful young woman sat next to him, revealing everything that she could legally reveal with her short dress, and started flirting with him.

James was a lot of things. He could be a gentle lover, pleasing the people he was with, taking his time, being a complete gentleman. But James was also a strong man with a lot of issues, and he learned very early on that those two things didn’t mix. When he was in a similar mood, he found it hard to contain his frustration with himself, with life, with the whole universe. He had anger issues, he knew that. Maybe he didn’t get to hurt anyone in the action for too long. Whatever it was, he felt like hurting someone now, and that couldn’t be a twenty year old woman, nine stone at most.

He looked around, searching the crowd for Alec. Alec would understand, and he could take James’ aggression – as he had done many times before. But Alec was nowhere to be seen, so the blond soldier turned to the bartended and asked where the nearest gay club was.

Twenty minutes later he walked into the only gay club in the town. It wasn’t a great place, definitely much shabbier than any London club, but it was something, and James was slightly drunk. He ordered another tequila at the bar and looked around, assessing his options.

Freezing on the spot when his eyes met Quinn’s.

James stared at the boy, who looked like a deer in the headlights. He was obviously surprised to see the older man, so he wasn’t here to find him. He was here on his own, unrelated business.

In a gay bar.

James tried to ignore how that realization made him feel weak in the knees.

Before he could move, Quinn turned on his heel and disappeared in the crows, obviously trying to dodge the conversation that was inevitably going. To his disadvantage, James was used to following a suspect in a crowded space, and he was tailing him in a matter of seconds.

“Quinn,” James finally caught him by the toilets, situated just by the front door. His voice was harsher than any tone he ever used on Quinn – he was tired, wrung out, slightly drunk, and very irritated. So when Quinn turned with defensive look in his eyes, James was ready for a fight.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear an explanation. He was completely ready for the look Quinn gave him, that familiar ‘don’t be an idiot, James’ look. He didn’t let go, though.

“You’re underage,” he pressed.

That finally made Quinn react verbally. He frowned and tossed his head as he replied, and his curls swung around wildly. James realized they were longer than the last time he saw him.

“Age of consent is sixteen,” he said.

“Not for drinking,” James retaliated, growing ever more irritated. “At sixteen, if you can’t have sex outside a club, you don’t get to have sex.”

He was ready for some ‘that’s not fair’ whining and was already preparing a dad-worthy answer the type of ‘life’s not fair’, but Quinn just scoffed as if James was utterly ignorant.

“Why are you here, James?” he asked instead of elaborating, and this time it was James’ turn for the ‘idiot’ look, as he started to call it in his head. Quinn blinked a few times, taking the info in – James wondered, in a brief moment of madness, if Q has turned into a computer while working with them, if his hardware was rebooting.

When the younger man caught up to speed… well, that’s when it all started. Or was it much sooner? Well, for James, this is what he always came back to in his mind in the years to come.

“I didn’t know you were gay,” Quinn said. He seemed… uncomfortable. Even more so than before.

“Well, I’m whatever I feel like,” James said, not really wanting to explain. He just wanted to have sex and different moods called for different types of people. Their gender was secondary.

“And you had to pick this excuse of a gay bar in Portsmouth, of all places?” Quinn murmured, jaded.

“I was posted here for a couple of days,” James said warily. “I thought you knew that.”

Quinn looked him in the eyes at that. “I don’t keep tabs on you, James,” he said, and this time the sentence sounded real. This time James believed him. This time, James felt a mild pain in his stomach as he realized that Quinn was telling the truth.

Quinn’s gaze shifted down and then he bit his lip and glanced around himself, looking at all the people in the club. James was quite good at reading people, and he didn’t miss the change of behaviour Quinn tried to hide, but which was clear as day to a trained eye. Quinn was hungry for something. Hungry and _desperate._ He was looking around to find someone to satisfy that desperation.

No. He must be reading way too much into him. He was imagining that. Quinn was just uncomfortable being caught underage in a gay nightclub by his… friend? Were they friends? Were they family? What kind of family were they, anyway?

“We both came here for a reason, didn’t we?” Quinn said. “Let’s do that business, far apart from each other, and never speak of this again, alright?”

James reluctantly mulled it over in his mind. It was a rational suggestion. They were… well, not really both adult, but Quinn was as intelligent as one and legally allowed to have sex with whoever he pleased, as long as that someone was legal and willing. And James was restless and not a smidge less wanting than he was when he came here this night.

So he nodded. Quinn nodded back, almost absentmindedly, and bolted back into the crowd, leaving James with a confusing mix of feelings he didn’t want to think about too much.

Now when he thought of that night later, James saw it. He understood every little decision he made that night for what it was, but in that moment, living them, making them as he went along, he was blissfully blind to them. It was an oversight he decided to never make again. It was born out of ignorance and self denial, a wall he made in his mind that kept him from understanding himself in times when understanding would lead to self reflection he wasn’t ready for yet. James Bond may have grown into the morally grey bastard he later became, but everyone starts small.

That’s why when he saw the man he took home that night, he subconsciously ignored how similar he was to… a certain someone. How much he needed to vent out his frustration. How he ended up pushing the man’s black haired head face first into his own mattress, because James could never take him to the base, and how good it felt to have his lithe, young body writhing under him in a mix of ecstasy and pain.

He didn’t see Quinn again that night.

It was probably for the best.

***

The first day of James’ leave, he felt like shit. He woke up at five in the morning, his internal clock working overtime even though he went to sleep only four hours prior, after coming back from his one night stand’s student flat.

Once he was up, he gave up on trying to go back to sleep, knowing from experience that his body would keep waking him up and make him feel guilty for being lazy, as if he was oversleeping his duty, so he put on some sweatpants, an old t-shirt, and went for a run.

The cold morning wind woke him right up. Portsmouth was busier than most places in the morning thanks to its location by the sea, with many fishmongers and sailors starting work before the sun came out. James ran past them, breathing in the smell of fresh fish and sea water, filling his lungs with painfully crisp air on every second step. He wasn’t used to running – there’s not much running space on a ship, even a Navy one, and he was out of practice, but it was nice to have real ground under his feet for a change, knowing that wherever he chose to go, he could go, without an ocean standing in his way. He liked the freedom.

As he turned the corner, avoiding the queue that was starting to form outside of Greggs, he caught sight of a familiar figure and his steps slowed down on the pavement until he stopped, frowning at the curled up body resting on a bench under a tree.

Quinn was asleep only in the clothes he wore in the club, a long sleeved t-shirt and jeans. James tried assessing the weather, his training whispering facts about body temperature and times needed for a body to go into hypothermia, but the nights were not yet so cold as to pose any real danger for the young boy. He could get a nasty cold, but his life should be alright unless he’ll develop a bronchitis.

James scooped Quinn up and into his arms, hoping that his body heat would offer at least some warmth until they reached Quinn’s home. The boy stirred, dragging his consciousness from the surely restless sleep he’d had, and his eyes tried to focus on James’ face. James was already walking, wanting to get Quinn home as soon as possible, already thinking of blankets and hot water bottles and tea, when Quinn’s cold nose pressed against his neck and his whole body curled into James’ chest, hugging him close.

James would lie if he said that didn’t feel damn good.

He winced when he realized that he would need to ring the bell at this ungodly hour and explain why the first time after four years, Mrs. Ronkswood will see him when he carries her hungover child through her front door. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do anything about that. Even if he tried sneaking Quinn into the house without someone noticing, he didn’t know where his room was. One thing more awkward than having Quinn’s mother open the door to them would be having his mother find him inside her house with her unconscious son.

It turned out to be less awkward then he thought. When Mrs. Ronkswood opened the door (and seriously, where was Quinn’s father?), she took one look at them, clearly surprised, and immediately ushered them inside and into Quinn’s room. James didn’t like the look on her face – like she dealt with Quinn like this before, like it wasn’t shocking that he wouldn’t spend the night home and then turn up in a poorly state. James didn’t like that at all. While she went to fill a hot water bottle and make some tea, James laid Quinn on his bed and started stripping him. At this point, Quinn woke up from his half asleep state and watched him with tired eyes.

“What the hell, Quinn?” James had to murmur. He was beyond frustrated. He was confused and worried, and Quinn was just looking at him with almost dead eyes that seemed to reach into James’ insides and clench at his stomach. He took off the boy’s t-shirt  and was just about to replace it with a fuzzy sweater that he found on the chair, when he noticed a large bruise blooming on his side, right above his hip. As if someone grabbed him there and…

Quinn noticed his staring and looked down, assessing the bruise.

“Oh, that,” he said, matter of factly. “He was a strong bloke.”

James’ sharp gaze shot up to look into Quinn’s face. Before he could ask, Quinn added: “Completely consensual, don’t worry. You don’t have to kill anyone.”

In that moment, Quinn’s mother appeared in the door and James hastily pulled the sweater through Quinn’s head to hide the marks.

“Here you go, sweetie,” she handed James the hot water bottle and put a steaming mug on the bedside table. Quinn’s head rotated like a sunflower after the sun and he was reaching for the mug before James could warn him against it.

“Quinn, just… don’t spill it,” he said, and then immediately snatched it when he saw how the boy’s hands trembled. Quinn made a hurt noise and tried to reach for it, but James glared at him and started blowing the tea to cool it down a little. Quinn reluctantly settled down, leaning back and watching James. His mother noticed the hot water bottle that James dropped onto the duvet, and put it under the duvet to warm up Quinn’s feet. The boy almost melted at that. James was caught staring at his face, completely lost in bliss for a few moments. Caught by Quinn when he opened his eyes and looked right at him.

“I’ll be in the kitchen,” Mrs. Ronkswood said. “James, if you could see me before you leave?” she waited for him to look at her and nod before leaving the room. She left the door open and James waited for her to descend the stairs before setting the mug aside, getting up and closing them.

“No you don’t,” he said when Quinn immediately took the opportunity to reach for the abandoned mug, and, surprisingly, Quinn drew back. The little victory felt good.

“You are about to tell me exactly what happened and why you thought it a good idea to stay outside instead of going home,” James said in his commander voice. Quinn just raised his eyebrows at him.

“Everything?” he asked, and James could sense the threat before he continued, and realized he fucked up. “When should I start? When we parted in the club? Should I tell you how I found a guy who fucked me on the toilets? Do you want to know how old he was? How big? What he did to me…?”

“Shut up,” James growled. They stared at each other, the tension so strong that Einstein could base a whole new theory about the universe in that room. James’ jaw was set in stone.

“You wanted to know _everything_ ,” Quinn pointed out.

“I want to know why you did it,” James said.

That seemed to make Quinn re-evaluate his aggressive tactic.

“What do you care,” he spat out.

“When you go on a self-destructive streak, yeah, I do care!” James lost his temper and had to lower his voice before Quinn’s mother would come running. “What the fuck, Quinn? What happened to you?”

Quinn looked away, ignoring him. Like a petulant child.

“Alright,” James gave up. “When you’re ready to talk, we can talk.”

“I don’t want to talk,” Quinn said. James waited for him to say anything else, to change his mind, to _look at him_ … but Quinn stayed stubbornly turned away, staring at a poster of Doctor Who on the wall.

“Then I guess our friendship is over,” James said quietly. That made Quinn whip around and stare at him, but he didn’t say anything. He just looked so… hurt.

But James couldn’t fight him anymore. If they couldn’t talk… then there was nothing else they could do. Talking was what made them friends.

He turned on his heel and walked away.

Quinn didn’t stop him.

He found Mrs. Ronkswood in the kitchen, sitting at a table with half eaten breakfast which she didn’t look like wanting to finish.

“Ah, James,” she got up when she saw him. “Would you like something to eat? Or a tea? Coffee?”

“Just water is fine,” he tried to smile politely at her. She mimicked his attempt and poured him a glass from the tap.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you today, to be honest,” she said while he drank the whole glass at once.

“I came yesterday,” he explained, setting the glass down. “With the troop. We’re here for a week. I found Quinn on my morning run.”

She nodded, satisfy with the explanation.

“Mrs. Ronkswood…” he started.

“Oh no, honey, call me Diana,” she stopped him with a smile. “I can’t believe we never exchanged first names. You’re a grown up man, you don’t have to call me Mrs. Ronkswood.”

“Diana then,” he corrected himself. “What’s happened with Quinn? He didn’t used to be like this.”

She sighed and sat down at the table again.

“If I only knew,” she said. “He was always… different, you know, my Quinn. He is definitely a genius. I had enough trouble with his father to know that they are not easy to deal with,” her tone of voice was conspiratorial. “So we left him be as much as we thought was safe. He had great grades, never any issues with school… a bit of an authority issue. Nothing horrible. He’s a strong headed boy. And to be honest, he’s not going crazy even now. I know what it looks like,” she added as she saw James’ sceptical face. “He has his moments. Sometimes he does this. I don’t know what goes on when he’s out there… well, I have an idea,” she said sheepishly. “But he is old enough to make his own decision. I talked to him many times, don’t get me wrong, but he ignores everything I say, and so far his only crime is he came home late a few times or slept somewhere else. He’s being a normal teenager.”

James wanted to say that normal teenagers don’t sleep on benches on cold nights, but he let it be. If he looked at it from Diana’s point of view, she was right. Quinn was sixteen. If he went out sometimes and had sex, what could she do but give him the talk? Well, she could be stricter, but that was up to her. She probably didn’t know about the bruises.

“I hope you can talk to him,” she said. “Maybe he’ll tell you more than me. He keeps insisting that he’s fine and I don’t want to make a big deal out of it. But I know you kept in touch.”

James nodded, even though he knew that the chance was slim. Quinn didn’t want him anymore.

He left the house about ten minutes later, after Diana tried to feed him and he had to lie that they needed him at the base. His run back was even faster and left him completely out of breath to the point where his side and lungs hurt.

***

James didn’t expect to see Quinn again.

Maybe ever.

It hurt. It felt like a part of him flipped him off and ran away into the sunset. Not a big part, mind you, he wasn’t that fixated on the boy, but still – Quinn was in his life ever since his parents weren’t. In a way, maybe, he took care of him the way his parents used to take care of him, and then later, when he grew up, he got to spend some stolen time with him. Time that was stolen from James when he was Quinn’s age.

Actually, no, when he was Quinn’s age, he drove a motorcycle through Bullring, got caught by the police for the first time, spent a night in jail, and fucked the wife of the most unpleasant copper he had to deal with, so maybe it was James who was living in the past and seeing Quinn as a child.

They were outside the base with Alec, sharing a cigarette and some personal space, when Alec tore his eyes from him (which by this point were pointedly running from his lips to his crotch) and fixed them over James’ shoulder, staring into the distance. James turned and was surprised to see Quinn standing by the fence, looking at them.

“You have an admirer,” Alec chuckled.

“Don’t be stupid, that’s Quinn,” James scoffed before turning, snatching the cigarette from Alec, and taking a deep drag. Cigarettes were almost as frowned upon as sex between cadets, so they were risking a disciplinary action, but since James was the commander and the captain almost never left his office, they were pretty safe.

“ _That’s_ Quinn?” Alec raised his eyebrows. “I thought he’s like five.”

“Yeah. He was. Eleven years ago. Do you have a concept of time?” James stifled the cigarette on the ground and then put it into Alec’s trouser pocket, which earned him a scowl to which James just smiled sweetly in return.

“No,” Alec said, still frowning. “I am forever young and I except that from everyone. Although you are looking worse with every day.”

“Says the one with wrinkles,” James pointed out, already walking away.

Quinn looked better than the last time he saw him, two days earlier. He was in a hoodie and jeans, his wild hair flying in the breeze, and he didn’t look like the stunt he pulled gave him pneumonia, which was a relief. He did look more awkward than James had ever seen him though. He didn’t even realize how naturally confident Quinn was until he saw him lose it all.

“Hi,” Quinn chirped.

“Hey,” James replied.

And then they… stood.

Quinn kicked a stone around, giving it all his attention. James watched the stone jump around.

Then he cleared his throat.

“Are you feeling alright?” he asked. Quinn nodded.

“Yeah. I don’t mind the cold much,” he murmured. He found another stone after the first one wondered way too far after a particularly hard kick, and now he was stumping it to the ground with the tip of his boot.

“Why are you here, Quinn?” James lost his patience. Quinn finally looked up at him, his hazel eyes slightly afraid, like he wanted to run away.

“How long do you have before you leave?” he asked instead of answering the question. James took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. It was an ugly day, morning saw fog so strong the fence wasn’t even visible from the front door, and now the sky was grey and blank.

“Another five days,” James said when he looked at Quinn again, and the younger man nodded with an expression on his face that fit the weather.

“I don’t want us to end like this,” he said. Every word was punctuated like he worked hard on getting them out. “But I can’t pretend like everything is the same it was before. I… I just don’t want to sit at home while you’re _here_ …” the last words sounded so pained James felt the urge to lighten up the mood.

“Why, Quinn, don’t tell me you’re in love with me.”

He regretted those words when Quinn looked up and their eyes met.

And James understood. He understood why Quinn was here, making sure that he doesn’t waste time with stupid grudges when James would leave so soon. Understood why Quinn was in the club on the day of his birthday – of course he wouldn’t forget, he never forgot his birthday. He understood what changed after Quinn saw him in the hospital after what could be very well a common occurrence in his line of work.

Quinn _was_ in love with him.

He almost heard the snap of two puzzle pieces conjoining.

Quinn schooled his expression quickly, but by the time he opened his mouth to retaliate, James’ expression changed to shocked understanding, and the younger boy snapped his mouth closed, angry that he gave himself away so easily.

An awkward silence fell upon them.

James’ brain kicked into gear after a while. Over the years, his understanding of Quinn was split as if he was dealing with two people, but it wasn’t Quinn who had two personalities, it was James’ inability to distinguish his expectations from who Quinn actually was. James saw him as a child with an incredibly matured brain. Quinn never stopped surprising him with how adult his actions were – because James always expected him to act his age. However, no surprise could be as big as what he felt now.

Now, he was finally able to see Quinn for who he truly was. A young man with more common sense than any professor James ever met. He tried to find anything in Quinn’s actions that would make it easier, something he could scold him about, but he had to admit his actions weren’t those of a child, but of a hurt individual with a self destructive streak.

“Come on, let’s walk,” he finally said, visibly surprising the younger man. Before he could recover, James was already walking along the fence towards the gate. Quinn cautiously followed.

James shut the gate behind him and waited for Quinn to come closer, then they walked wordlessly towards the nearest beach.

“You don’t look angry,” Quinn said after about five minutes of silence. James looked at him, then turned his blue eyes towards the horizon.

“I’m not angry,” he confirmed. “I don’t know what I am right now, but being angry isn’t the response you should get just for having certain feelings,” then he looked at him sharper. “I do wish you haven’t risked getting pneumonia because of them.”

Quinn had the good sense to look ashamed.

“How long?” James asked as the sea breeze touched their faces and played with their hair. Quinn’s face gained a slightly pained look.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I suppose I always…I realized in the hospital, but why else would I have travelled so far on a whim?” he shrugged. Then he said, with much more confidence and the kind of calculated tone James was used to with him: “Just to make it clear, I’m not expecting anything to happen, I don’t want our relationship to change in any way. I just recognize my subjective feelings and want to spare both parties any hurt that might have occurred after my actions.”

“Where do I sign?” James asked, not even phased by Quinn’s robot-like speech. He found it comforting in its familiarity.

“I don’t want to lose you, James,” Quinn’s voice turned back to silent and fragile. It made something in James squeeze tight. He stopped and turned to Quinn.

“You’re not going to lose me,” he said earnestly. Quinn was almost as tall as him but at that moment he looked so small. James didn’t have a lot of experience with feelings and he didn’t find comfort in physical closeness, and he didn’t know if Quinn would – he definitely didn’t seem to be the type. He also didn’t want to make him pine even more if Quinn felt attracted towards him.

“Should I hug you?” he asked, realizing too late that he sounded like a robot. That was Quinn’s area.

“You can do whatever you like,” Quinn almost whispered, his gaze dropped to the sand and stones.

James didn’t really want to – not because he didn’t want to hug Quinn, just because he was afraid of what it will do to the boy who already looked so wrecked. But there wasn’t much else he could do and he needed Quinn to know that, even though in a much milder and friendly way, James loved him, too.

That’s why he pulled him in, one arm over his shoulders, one grabbing the back of his neck, and hugged him close. Quinn was awkward in his arms at first, but then he relaxed, melted into the embrace, and eventually hugged back, his fists grabbing handfuls of James’ hoodie.

They stood like that for some time – it was probably the longest hug of James’ life, and he found that he really didn’t mind. Quinn was warm and fit into his body, and his hair smelled of ginger and felt silky against his growing beard. His head was tucked under James’ chin and as he breathed, James could feel the hot breath on his neck.

It sated something deep inside him that only made itself known around Quinn.

“Better?” he asked when they separated. Quinn nodded.

“Can you look at me now?” James asked. Quinn looked up and their eyes met – it wasn’t easy for him, James could see it, but they held each other’s gaze for a few seconds, Quinn trying to show he can do it without being the first one to cave.

“Great,” James smiled and turned to continue on his way. Quinn followed suit.

They sat down on a patch of grass near the sea. Quinn sat cross legged and kept pulling out grass while James braced himself on his outstretched arms, looking out to the sea and lost in thought. They didn’t talk – they didn’t have to. The tension was mostly gone. After a while, James lay down, cushioning his head with his arms, and when all the grass around Quinn was mowed, he lay down beside him.

“I don’t want you to hurt, Quinn,” James said suddenly. He couldn’t stop thinking about the two of them, analysing their actions, what Quinn ever did, said, his face at any point during every conversation they ever had – and his own words and actions and how they might have affected him. James never gave any human being’s emotions so much attention. Not since his parents died.

Quinn wriggled until he was lying on his side, facing James. Studying his face.

James turned his head and their eyes met. He didn’t say what was going through his head – that Quinn didn’t deserve to be hurt. That was a stupid sentiment. ‘Deserve’ had nothing to do with it.

“I like the pain,” Quinn said levelly. “It’s better than feeling nothing.”

James frowned. Was that why he pulled that stupid stunt in the club?

“You’re a self-destructive little shit,” he said and Quinn smirked.

“So what are you going to do, punish me?” he said cheekily.

“I have half a mind to,” James ruffled Quinn’s hair playfully. They grinned at each other like fools.

They returned to the base before the sun set. From there, Quinn went home, and James to his bunk in his and Alec’s room.

He found himself unable to do much. Instead of going to dinner, he stayed in his room, lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, lost deep in thought.

 

 

Quinn came by the next day, and the next. They spent most of the time together, talking and hanging out the same way they used to. But there was that _something_ in the air now, that unspoken knowledge. James saw it in the way Quinn looked at him – how could he have ever missed it? – and he could feel a pull towards the boy, making him want to do things he swore he’d never feel again. He wanted to protect him, shield him from the world and himself, and yet with every minute, with every long look at his face, his chest was burning more. He didn’t know why but it was making him unsettled, it made him want to grab and destroy as much as he wanted to be as gentle as a feather.

It was confusing him.

“So will you be joining us when we leave or will your head stay wherever it is right now?” Alec’s voice pierced his consciousness. He looked down from his top bunk at his next in command. “Because it sure as hell ain’t here,” Alec added.

“I’m here,” James frowned.

“Bullshit. The men have been asking about you. Whenever you’re physically at the base you look like your flies flew away.”

“My flies?” James raised his eyebrows.

“Shit, that’s Russian again, isn’t it?” he shrugged. “You get my point.”

“They’re adult men, they can survive a few days without my constant supervision,” James grumbled and looked up into the ceiling away.

“You don’t want a bunch of highly trained idiots questioning your command, James,” Alec warned him, but he let it go. If James Bond ever listened to anyone, they were long dead.

The lights went off at eight as always. James eyes took about a minute to adjust to the dark. Alec was already in his bed with a torchlight and his set of knives which James found at the same time ridiculous and arousing. He rolled from his bed and jumped down, stretched his legs, and then he was on Alec.

It was a quick affair – not a fight, not sexual advances, something in between. They were used to it. They lived together for long enough to lose secrecy, long enough to know what the other one needed. That didn’t mean they always gave it to each other.

Alec was quicker than his statue would suggest, but every bit as strong, and James barely realized what was happening before he was pinned to the cheap mattress with a blade pressed to his throat.

“It’s a very bad idea to jump a Russian with a knife,” Alec growled, his accent thicker. His knee was pressing into James’ lower back, touch away from damaging his kidneys. James let out a pained puff of air, nothing more.

“Is this what you want?” Alec moved the knife downwards, towards James’ chest. “Do you have a death wish? Do you want to be hurt? Or did you think you can hurt me? Cause that’s stupid, James.”

James didn’t say anything – he knew that nothing could make Alec move away, he just had to wait it out. But then Alec’s body shifted, pushing him even lower, and his lips touched James’ ear. “Do you want to be fucked, James? Is that it?”

“No!” James growled back.

“Then why didn’t you wait until I put the knives away?”

“You sleep with a knife under your pillow, you dirty Russian,” James spat out. “I thought you’d be distracted. Now get off of me before you crush my kidneys!”

Alec complied. James sat up, his hand shooting up to touch his neck, finding it intact. At least Alec knew his way around his deadly toys.

“So,” Alec was sat with his back against his wall again, polishing a knife like nothing happened. “What was that about?”

James glared at him. He was slightly out of breath.

“Nothing.”

“Right. So it had nothing to do with Quinn?”

James’ glare turned icy.

“Leave him out of this.”

Alec smirked. “So it is about him. You have to admit I don’t have his figure.”

James jumped up and started pacing like a lion in a cage.

“I don’t want to… I don’t know what I want to do, but I can’t…”

“Can’t is not the same as don’t want to. He’s skinny and you’re afraid of hurting him. I get it. But you’d be surprised what a young body can take,” Alec’s smirk made him look like the cat who ate the cream.

“I’m not you, I don’t do that. He’s practically a child.”

“I was his age when I joined the army. And a year younger when I had my first mistress. She was amazing with a whip…” James stared at the way Alec’s eyes glazed over and his smile became dreamy.

“You’re the meanest top I know,” he pointed out.

Alec came back to earth and grinned. “That’s because it would be embarrassing for you to try to make me do anything.”

James scoffed.

“So what made you this jumpy?” asked Alec. James pulled himself back up onto his bunk.

“He’s in love with me,” he admitted.

“Great. Then fuck him and he won’t be.”

James grabbed his pillow and threw it into Alec’s face.

“I’m keeping this,” he heard from the Russian.

“You’ll run the track for two hours tomorrow,” James replied and smiled when he heard the other man groan.

“Yes sir!” Alec said nonetheless with mirth in his voice.

 

 

Quinn’s eyes were the colour of moss on old trees and his hair was almost as dark as James’ thoughts.

He was innocent and he was spoiled like old milk. James saw what became of him in the last two years and it made him uneasy. What used to be awkward and lanky was becoming elegant and, at times, seductive. He was still a boffin whenever he talked about computers, he was a polite boy with a posh accent when buying ice cream from the ice cream van or helping a passer by, and at first James only saw the boy he knew. Until the third night.

He said goodbye to him at five and returned to the base just to find it half empty and the other half on its way out. His men passed him with a half hearted salute and continued on their merry way. Confused, he went to his and Alec’s room, where his roommate was changing from his sweatpants.

“What’s going on?” James asked.

“Dinner’s off,” Alec responded, not bothering to look at him. “I gave everyone a night off.”

“Alec…” James growled warningly. Alec turned around, buttoning his jeans.

“What? You weren’t here and I ain’t gonna eat three days old toad in a hole. They shouldn’t either. Just enjoy the night, brood some more, wank yourself to death, whatever it is you’ve been doing lately.”

James frowned, confused. “I haven’t been wanking more than usual.”

“Huh,” Alec took his shirt off. “Must’ve been me then. You’re gone a lot.”

James rolled his eyes and took his own t-shirt off. “Then why don’t you stay in with me?”

“With all due respect, Bond, I won’t have a choice once we’re on the ship again, so while I do, I’m going to enjoy it.”

James just shrugged, not offended in the slightest. Alec wasn’t his type either, but a body was a body, and Alec and him knew how to release tensions.

“Why don’t you do the same?” Alec asked after he pulled on a new shirt, black one that hugged his muscular chest and showed off his biceps and toned forearms. “Before you jump me again?”

James thought about it. Maybe going out and fucking a stranger would help him forget… nothing. There was nothing to forget. Just an itching under his skin and a restless energy tearing him from the inside out that he refused to explain.

“Yeah, why not,” he agreed after a second of consideration.

Not knowing anything about night life in Portsmouth meant they walked into several establishments just to walk out disappointed, and one that Alec immediately called ‘too easy’ and James thought too cheap and expensive at once. Finally, they found a night club with tolerable music that looked like it was the students’ preferred place to party. By that time, neither of them felt like taking long (and they both ignored the fact that it was because they would normally be preparing to go to sleep at this time, military was worse than kindergarten). They took off their jackets, ordered vodka, and went to work.

It wasn’t officially a competition but… well, it was a competition. Alec was a bastard that would rub his win in James’ face for a month and James was done with him undermining his authority, and they both took their quest to find a one night stand very seriously, pulling their biggest guns.

“So you’re a soldier?” a brunette with an adorable Irish accent asked, her eyes almost glued to his biceps. James took a sip from his beer and nodded, not bothering with explaining the nuances of what he did.

“Have you ever killed someone?” her eyes get the half scared, half fascinated look to them. He wonders what she wants to hear, if it would make her leave if he said he did.

“No,” he says truthfully. He’s lost interest in taking her to bed a long time ago but is too proud to lose against Alec. He tells himself he might enjoy it more when she’s naked.

He’s taking another sip of beer when he spots him. In the middle of the dance floor, so unrecognizable it takes James a few seconds to realize it’s him. His dark hair looks pitch black in the party lights, his face relaxed, his clothes, normally darkish and uptight, replaced by tight jeans and a long sleeved t shirt that hugged his lithe body in a way that made James’ throat dry out. What made the picture all so sweet was that Quinn was _dancing._ His hips were leading the motion, drawing lazy figure of eights, his harms raised above his head, eyes closed – the perfect picture of serenity and enjoyment.

And then, just as James’ insides were warming up, Quinn was hugged by another body, and he was hit in the stomach by an invisible force. He watched as an older, bigger man touched the younger boy’s back, drew him in, matched the movements of their hips, how Quinn lowered his hands to hug the man’s neck.

Before James could think about it, he was charging at the couple, shoving people in his way aside. He grabbed Quinn’s shoulder, pulling him away while simultaneously pushing the stranger’s chest away. The guy was almost as big as him and would have overpowered him if their eyes didn’t meet and they didn’t recognize each other.

The man’s face twisted in confusion for a second when his commanding officer pushed him away from a potential conquest, but James stood his ground.

“Find someone else to molest, Jiggers!” he spat at him, turning around and dragging a protesting Quinn out of the bar. He didn’t stop until they were down the road, in front of a closed charity shop, where he finally released the shouting teenager.

“That hurt!” Quinn exploded, rubbing his arm and glaring daggers at the older man.

“I thought you liked the pain,” James spat back snidely.

“That’s not what I meant!” Quinn replied angrily. “What the fuck did you do that for?!”

“I don’t want you to fuck strangers you pick up in bars, where you’re _illegally_ , just to spite me.”

“I’ve been fucking that guy for a year!” Quinn spat out loudly. A passer-by’s head turned. “Not everything is about you, Bond, you ever considered that?”

“Oh right, your brooding and pining is not related to this at all,” James mocked him. Quinn’s face fell.

“So what if it does?” he asked. “You have no right telling me how to deal with it.”

James’ stomach dropped. “I thought that being your friend and caring about you gives me the right,” He said, slightly taken aback.

“You don’t care about me,” Quinn’s face made an ugly thing James didn’t like. “You don’t give a _shit_ about me. I’m just good for inflating your already huge ego.”

James let out a growl and before his brain could catch up with his actions, he made a long step that brought him just inches away from the younger man. He was still a couple of inches taller than Quinn, and he made him feel it. “Don’t you dare tell me what I feel,” he growled. “You spoiled prat, you think the world revolves around you and your fucking boner.”

“Kettle,” Quinn brought his face just an inch closer, the angry scowl never leaving it. “ _Black_.”

Anger burned deep in James’ gut, mixed with something even hotter and all consuming. His impulsive side won, as it often did, and his long after that night, he blamed his actions on the fact that his job taught him to resolve situations by violence. That’s why instead of arguing, he lashed out.

He only realized what he’s done when he had the lithe man pressed against the wall, when he felt his hot breath on his skin, felt the rapid filling of his lungs with the hand pressed into his torso. Quinn’s eyes were wide, his pupils blown so big it almost looked like his eyes were black.

James suddenly realized that the breaths Quinn was taking in might have as well been his, because he stopped breathing altogether.

“That’s what I meant,” Quinn breathed out, and it took James a second to remember their conversation. When he realized what Quinn meant, his brain froze for a second, and all the blood made a quick journey south.

He shifted, just enough for his thigh to press against Quinn’s crotch, finding exactly what he expected. The boy’s eyes fluttered shut and the quietest sound escaped his mouth.

“That’s _exactly_ what I meant,” he sighed before James hungrily kissed him.

Now, James Bond always had problems with impulse control, but he stopped giving a single shit around two years after the kiss, just around the time he became a double oh agent. During his Navy years, he still had a trace of morals, morals which made him regret when he did something… well, something like this. Unfortunately for him, regret caught up with him much later.

That’s why his first reaction when he was torn apart from Quinn was to lash at whoever’s hand was pushing into his chest and gripping his nape.

“As much as I’d love to see you fuck up on an astronomical level,” Alec said, strengthening his grip on the blonde man. “We have some damage control to do. Act like you didn’t just snog your cousin.”

James realized that something serious was going on by the tone of Alec’s voice. He straightened up, assessing the situation, trying to ignore his raging hard on, and how delicious Quinn looked, using the wall for support and avoiding everyone’s gaze.

“Jiggers is coming up and I told him how close you were so he feels bad for being handsy with Quinn but if he sees you like this, you’re DONE, Bond,” Alec quickly explained, strengthening his hold even more until James felt like he could snap his neck in twice.

Just then, Alec’s grip loosened and his face broke into a huge smile.

“You two should go, you wouldn’t want Quinn’s mum to worry, would you? She could ground you for life, Quinn,” he smiled even wider at the young boy but patted James’ chest so the commander knew the real threat. He forced a friendly smile.

“Alec’s right, Quinn. This was your last night out or I’m telling Diana,” Alec finally released him and James took Quinn by the shoulder. He caught a glimpse of Jiggers, standing just by the door to the club, putting on his jacket and looking at them. He wasn’t even sure if he could hear them, but Alec seemed serious, so he played along.

He walked the boy down the street, his blood cooling down, and the regret was catching up with him. He was entering some very dangerous waters. This was Quinn – little Quinn, who he knew since he was five. He tucked this child in when he was little. Not forgetting that technically, they were a family. Somehow. James wasn’t sure about that part.

And that was beside the point. He had no business being turned on by a sixteen year old boy. He still remembered the pyjama he helped him into that time after the party. They had bloody Winnie the Pooh on them.

“We’re not going to talk about that,” he said when they were far away that not even Alec could hear them.

“We’re not family,” Quinn said. “Not really. My mother married your father’s cousin.”

“You researched it, did you?” James almost chuckled. Almost. “You’re way too young for this.”

“I hardly think that’s a valid argument,” Quinn snorted. “You were just chatting up eighteen year olds that have quarter of my intelligence. You’re not really the moral compass here, James.”

“Intelligence and experience are two different things, Quinn. Just because you can string up code and what not doesn’t mean you are ready for a sexual relationship.”

“I think I made it clear that I _do_ have the experience,” Quinn raised his eyebrows at him. James gritted his teeth in annoyance.

“Yes, that you did,” he replied. He could still feel Quinn’s… experience. He looked at him, suddenly suspicious. “Why are you so calm?” he asked. Quinn’s little smile made him even more alert.

“I’m just happy.”

That took James aback.

“Why? Because of one kiss?”

“No,” Quinn was still smiling. “Because we’re going home and my parents are gone for the weekend.”

James’ stomach simultaneously dropped and fluttered with excitement.

“I’m going to drop you off at home and _leave._ ” He said resolutely.

“Yeah, I know,” Quinn said. James restrained himself from fighting him like a child.

They didn’t speak until they reached Quinn’s front door. Quinn opened it and held it open for James.

“I’m going back to the base, Quinn,” James shook his head.

“Come on, just for a while,” Quinn insisted.

“Quinn…”

Quinn rolled his eyes. “If your resolve is so tough, then it won’t crack because I made you tea, will it?”

James sighed, weighing his options, and then nodded and followed Quinn in.

He was mindful, cautious, but Quinn really spent several minutes making tea while James sat in the living room. James could smell the herbs from where he sat, and they calmed down his frayed nerves. He felt so English in that moment it made him sick.

After about five minutes, Quinn walked in, carrying two big mugs filled with slightly coloured liquid smelling of fresh herbs.

“My mum is crazy about tea, she picks her own herbs when they’re in season,” Quinn said when James was taking his cup from him. The older man couldn’t help inhaling and his eyes closed in bliss.

“Your mother knows what she’s about,” he said and took a sip. The tea wasn’t even scolding hot like he expected. “Did you add cold water to this?” he asked. Quinn shrugged.

“I hate waiting for it to be drinkable. I thought you might feel the same.”

James did. He wouldn’t tell him that though.

Quinn sat with his back to the armrest, facing James, his legs crossed.

“Alec seems nice,” he said. “He had quite the power over you.”

James frowned at him. “He doesn’t.

“Well, he certainly knew how to get you to do what he wanted.”

James tried to find a way to argue with that, but he couldn’t. All he could come up with was a wish that Quinn and Alec never joined forces. They would be unstoppable.

The tea relaxed him and suddenly he realized what a long day it was. The cushions were so soft. He wondered if Quinn would let him sleep on the couch.

Just as he was thinking about asking, Quinn put his mug on the table, sat up straight, and took his mug from him. James realized what was happening too late. And maybe he didn’t want to realize soon enough to stop him. Because his hands were empty for only a second, only long enough for Quinn to put the mug away, climb into his lap, and kiss him hungrily.

The thing about Quinn’s kisses was that they were making James’ head spin. Suddenly it was very hard to remember where he was and what was his name, and all that was important was the body grinding into his, the lips that made him see stars, tongue that kept tingling his hard palate…

He caved. He didn’t even decide to cave, the decision was made for him the second Quinn laid his hands on him. He embraced him with one hand and the other snaked into his unruly, impossible hair, the hair he secretly fantasized about, and _pulled_.

The memory of the sound Quinn made could make James hard years later. It made James’ blood boil and he wanted to hear it all the time. He pulled harder and the sound became more desperate, and then he timed the next pull with a bite into Quinn’s lower lip and the boy melted in his arms.

If James had any brain cells left, he would think about all the times Quinn showed what a masochist he was and James just took it as a martyr complex or stupid teenage self destructive tendencies. Now he would understand that Quinn’s love for pain ran deeper than that, that he actually enjoyed it.

However, James’ brain at this point was only working enough to make his body function. And boy, did it function.

He didn’t bother undressing them. He was absolutely sure that he couldn’t make it all the way through. He just flipped him so he lay on the sofa, covered with James’ body, and moaned under the assault of James’ lips and teeth. James kept pulling his hair and Quinn’s moans never grew tired, and when another large hand curled around his throat, his whole body arched like a bow. James never stopped grinding their groins together, and it took only a few seconds before Quinn was coming apart.

He came with a strangled, half muted shout. James let go of his throat but couldn’t leave his hair alone. He forced himself to pull his hips away though. With his free hand, he reached for his fly and quickly undid it to get to his cock. He pulled it out and managed a few pulls before Quinn’s hand took over.

“Fuck!” James cursed. He gave in to the feeling of absolute pleasure and hid his face in the crook of Quinn’s throat. It took a few thrusts into Quinn’s palm and he was coming all over his (wet) trousers, and as he did so, he bit into Quinn’s neck which earned him another broken moan.

When the waves of white hot pleasure calmed down and one of the strongest orgasms of his life turned into a pleasurable buzz, he gathered the energy to pull himself up to look into Quinn’s face. The younger man looked more satisfied than James ever saw him, and it made his insides even warmer than they were. He kissed him, slowly this time, gently.

“You manipulative little minx,” he said when they parted, and Quinn grinned.

“You have the impulse control of a lightning storm,” he quipped. James had to agree. “Are you going to waste time with moral debates or can we go to bed?”

James was too tired to feel guilty. He postponed it.

“Let’s get a shower first.”

He helped him up, tucked himself in, and the stumbled up and into the bathroom.

***

James woke up first. Quinn fell asleep in the crook of his arm, pressed against his side, but now he was almost hanging off the bed, on the verge of falling off. It made James smile.

The sun was out which meant it was late in the morning. James hoped Alec won’t kill him for not being there for breakfast, but he had to get a move on if he wanted to leave the town a commander.

As he moved, Quinn jerked awake. He looked around himself with an owlish gaze, and James fought hard against the laughter bubbling in him at the sight of the boy with bed hair, pillow indents on his face, and a trail of saliva running down his chin.

When Quinn realized who’s in the bed with him, his face cleared and he laid back with a happy smile that melted James’ heart.

“Morning,” he said.

“Morning,” replied Quinn. He curled back where he was and pressed his face into James’ side. Then he stretched like a cat, and James felt his morning erection.

“I have to go,” he said quickly, but Quinn was already kissing his neck and straddling his leg, and James’ body betrayed him. He groaned when he felt himself get hard.

Quinn reached into his bedside table and pulled out a condom wrapper. He made a quick work of it and rolled it onto James’ cock.

“What are you doing?” James asked. Quinn just gave him a dirty smile and moved down on the bed.

“Fuck!” James grabbed Quinn’s hair when the boy swallowed him down. Quinn wasn’t joking when he said he had experience, he was making that very clear right in that moment. James had to fight himself not to do more than play with his hair, pulling slightly, but then Quinn looked up, James’ cock slipped from his mouth with a wet pop, and he said ‘you can fuck my mouth’ and James lost it.

Quinn had to take a few breaks to calm his gag reflex, but James was too turned on to torture him for long. When he came, he pulled Quinn up and hiss him while wanking the boy until he shot all over his stomach.

They took another quick shower and James dressed in a hurry. Just as he was about to leave the room, they heard the front door open and he froze.

“The window,” Quinn said, undisturbed. James rolled his eyes – he was too old to be sneaking out through the window, but he also didn’t want to cause the biggest scandal in his family since his cousin robbed a bank, so he caved in.

“Will you come tonight?” Quinn asked before he climbed out.

“I have self control, you know?” James said, and Quinn smirked.

“You’re only saying that cause you just came.”

James had to admit that might be true.

***

“Slept well?” Alec asked when he walked into their room.

“Where is the platoon?” James asked.

“Outside having a nice run and then an hour long training to show them what alcohol does to a soldier.”

£You should be with them.”

“No, you should be with them!” Alec jumped up from his bed and pointed at him with his book. “They are not my responsibility, they are _yours_ If you want to spend a week fucking your cousin, take a bloody leave of absence!”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” James growled. He knew he was in the wrong, but he would be damned if he didn’t stand up to aggression.

“Well I didn’t plan on taking on commander duties without any recognition,” Alec said. “Hell, _I_ planned on fucking this whole week, and I didn’t even get to do it yesterday!”

“Well I’m sorry I ruined your fuckfest.”

“You should be,” Alec sat down again. “Now fuck off, go run with them.”

James didn’t mention that he still WAS Alec’s superior because he didn’t want to lose his head. Instead he made his way outside and joined the men.

***

Quinn greeted him naked with only his old captain hat on and James didn’t waste a second. He couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d do to him when he was with him again, and that night he spent an hour and a half playing with the boy. He found a deep satisfaction in watching him squirm and cry into the pillow, and nothing made him happier than when Quinn asked for more. More pain, more pleasure, it didn’t seem to make any difference for the boy. He took everything James gave him, and would take more if James wasn’t so turned he fucked him into the mattress like a dirty whore. Quinn came untouched.

“I’m leaving on Tuesday,” James said when they lay side by side.

“I know,” Quinn said. He didn’t sound too happy about it.

“I don’t know when I’ll be next in England,” James continued.

“I’ll know,” Quinn said confidently. “And I’ll be there.”

James blinked a few times, processing, then let it go. If Quinn said he’d be there, he will be there. He already found him once. Quinn probably knew where James was going before James did.

***

He didn’t say proper goodbye on the day he left. There wasn’t an occasion where they would be alone. It looked very much like the first time he was leaving from Portsmouth – him walking up onto the ship, but saying one last bye to the only true friend he had (Alec didn’t count as he was pretty sure Alec was the type of Russian that would stab his own mother).

Quinn walked with him to the docks and then, when the ship was about to leave and they had to part, James hugged him. They clung to each other for a precious moment, and then he stepped away, took his rucksack, and got onto the ship.

Quinn didn’t stay to wave. He walked home, crying

***

James called every week if he could, but not more than that. He didn’t want to start strong and then call less and less often – calling once a week was a safe bet.

James found his way back home four months later and they spent three days in an Airbnb in Dublin. Six months later, Quinn waited for him at Heathrow and they had sex in the toilets for disabled while James waited for his next plane. Seven months later he was in Portsmouth for two days and he didn’t sleep at all because he spent the one night he was there in Quinn’s bed.

Quinn dropped out of school which seemed a huge subject of fights in his house. The tension was what drove him to Paris when James was there, then Germany, then Russia. Ever since he had a passport and made sure his parents didn’t call the police, he would meet James anywhere he could get.

“You have to stop this, Quinn,” James said when he found him in his hotel room in Croatia. It was paid for by the Navy because he was attending a conference. “It’s not safe for you to travel the world like a lost puppy.”

Quinn’s face fell. He grabbed his stuff and made his way towards the door.

“That’s not what I meant!” James caught his arm and pulled him close. “I want you here. But this is too dangerous for you. What if something happened to you?”

Quinn’s face was still moody, but he let James hug him close.

James didn’t have time to find out if Quinn listened to him, because the next time he met him, it was at Quinn’s parents’ funeral.

***

He got the call while he was sleeping, and he had to go take it to the control room because the submarine didn’t have the best reception for mobile phones. The message was clear – funeral in two days. No one knew how the message got to the ship. No one authorized it. Everyone just assumed it was so high up it was untraceable. James knew better.

He took a boat to the nearest coast and a plane to England. When he walked out from the train station in Portsmouth three hours before the funeral, he had a stubble, smelled like something rotten, and his suit had more creases than Marry Berry’s face.

They died in a plane crash on a trip to Isle of Man. James knew that Quinn hated Isle of Man with a vengeance and he stopped going on their annual trips three years ago.

James tried giving moral support to Quinn but it was like the boy built a wall around himself and no human connection could get to him. He was unresponsive to all attempts at conversation from all family members. Didn’t even flinch when James stood next to him.

For James, the funeral was like going back to the past, and it wasn’t a pleasurable journey. Quinn was five years older than him but that didn’t mean he was hurting any less than him when… James tried not to remember the pain he felt back then, but he could see it in Quinn’s dead eyes. Quinn was shutting himself off because that was all he could do to protect himself from the unimaginable pain he felt gnawing at his walls.

There was a wake in the house after the funeral. James’ aunt gave him a sad hug and went to hug Quinn, telling him how sorry she was, how strong he must be… James had to politely push her away and tell her to go eat some sandwiches. Then he took Quinn by the hand and dragged him into his room.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to say. He remembered the pain. He remembered wanting to die with his parents, remembered feeling like he was going to explode from grief, like he wanted to shut down or kill someone or have someone beat him to death or maybe all together…

He found lube where he thought he would – in Quinn’s bedside table, together with condoms. “Say stop and I’ll stop,” he said, then pushed him roughly on the bed and opened his fly. It wasn’t easy to get hard but he managed, and then he was pulling Quinn’s trousers down and pushing into him without preparation.

It wasn’t good for any of them, and that was for the best. James took longer than anytime before, doubting he could ever finish, but that worked just fine for him. Quinn was silent the whole time, but James still pushed his face into the duvet with enough force to leave bruises on his neck.

He only stopped when he heard the first sob. He pulled out, turned the boy, and hugged him to his chest as tightly as he could without suffocating him, grounding him. And Quinn cried. He cried for two hours. No one dared to enter the room, and who dared to knock was quickly rebuffed by angry James. They lay in the bed long hours – after everyone left, after the sun set, after the only sound in the room was their breathing.

“I should have been there with them,” was the first thing Quinn said, his voice rough and almost unrecognizable.

“I should have been there with them too,” James said and they both knew he didn’t mean Quinn’s parents

“No!” Quinn’s voice turned panicked, and suddenly he was all over James as if James was about to disappear into thin air. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no…” he kept whispering desperately.

“Yes,” James said, pushing him away. “Shut up and listen to yourself. Life goes on. You’re important to people who would feel just as horrible as you’re feeling now if you died,” he grabbed Quinn’s chin and made him look into his eyes. “You have no right feeling guilty. Life goes on.”

After that, Quinn cried some more.

James didn’t know how to tell him. He didn’t know if he should. He knew he would break the boy if he did, but he knew it would hurt almost as much if he just disappeared without a trace and didn’t even attempt to explain.

He decided it would be better if Quinn found out a few weeks later, when the wounds weren’t so fresh.

He left three days later. He left a message.

_Don’t kill yourself._


	3. Chapter 3

Quinn never found him.

He exhausted every single resource he had but James Bond existed no more. There were no records of him leaving the Navy, but there were no new records of his service. He disappeared in a way Quinn couldn’t track.

He lost himself in code. It became the only thing that kept him alive. He was hacking, inventing, building robotics, anything to keep his thoughts occupied by something completely unfeeling and cold. He was eighteen when his parents died which meant he had the house to himself and he almost killed himself in every single room of it. The only reason why he didn’t go on a coke diet was that James told him not to kill himself and Quinn knew that coke combined with a depression of his calibre would be like a bullet to the head.

He didn’t know why he kept a promise he never gave, to a man that wasn’t coming back, but he did. He accepted help after a year, and it another two years to pull him from the well of depression that he sunk into. He was never the same, and let’s be honest, it wasn’t like he was a bag of sunshine before the accident.

***

“So why you here for?”

Quinn cracked an eye open to look at the prostitute sitting on the other bench.

“Self destructive tendencies,” he replied tiredly. He didn’t sleep in three days.

“Oh yeah, we all have those,” she said. “But like, what did you do?”

He closed his eyes again, trying to get comfortable on the empty wooden bench. “Same as you, I suppose. I just wasn’t paid.”

“Stupid tha’!” she scoffed and he had to give it to her.

“Ronkswood!” the bobby who arrested him called his name. He opened his eyes to squint at him. His eyesight was getting worse.

“You have a visitor,” the copper said.

“It’s a holding cell, who could visit me?” he replied, not really asking. There was no one who would care about him being in jail. Again.

“If I were you, Mr. Ronkswood, I wouldn’t mouth off to the authorities,” an old, no nonsense female voice said. He looked up again.

There was a very short grey haired woman in a grey coat standing by the bars. He raised his eyebrows at the copper who just looked down, pretending to be busy.

“You are free to go, Mr. Ronkswood,” the woman said. He staggered to his feet, suspicious.

“Free to go?” he repeated.

“Well,” she said. “Free to go where I tell you to go.”

That sounded more realistic.

“Whatever,” he shrugged and she took it as the acceptance it was.

The copper opened the cell for him and he shuffled to her side.

“His friend is free to go as well,” the woman said offhandedly. Quinn was pretty sure she knew the prostitute wasn’t his friend, but he let it slide.

There was a black car waiting outside the station. He got in without a question. It might have been that his brain was short-circuiting after seventy hours without sleep, or he was just as tired inside as he was outside. Probably both. But he went without a question, and he didn’t sleep the whole ride to London.

When they arrived to Vauxhall, he didn’t have it in him to wonder, to be surprised, to feel anything. He was greeted by a man in a white coat and a young woman that looked like a nurse.

“Give him something to knock him out or he’ll die of exhaustion in the next few hours,” he heard the woman say, and then there was a needle in his neck and someone’s arms caught him before he fell to the hard concrete.

He woke up twelve hours later with a horrible dryness in his mouth and a desperate need to go to the toilet. Fortunately, the room he was in had a little bathroom, so he quickly stumbled there and almost cracked his head on a cabinet.

Twenty minutes later he was finally awake enough to start feeling curious about what has just happened. He didn’t remember anything from the car drive, so he didn’t know where he was, but no one was threatening him just yet so he patiently waited.

He was escorted to see the woman about an hour after he woke up and ate a fulfilling meal that was forced on him by a very strictly looking nurse.

He realized where exactly he was when he walked by a window and saw the bridge. He almost groaned but held himself from expressing his utter frustration.

“Thank you, Mr. Tanner,” the woman said when the man who picked him up from the hospital wing walked him into a huge office overlooking the river. “You can go. Mr. Ronkswood, please sit down.”

Quinn sat on the chair she pointed at, across the table from her.

“I’m M,” she said. “The head of MI6. I hope you understand the situation you are in?”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “I understand I was bailed by the head of MI6 and drugged to sleep in your personal hospital. That’s about it.”

Her expression made it clear she did not find him amusing.

“Your exploits have been dully noted,” she said. “You have been selected by our team as one of the brightest young hackers of England. But instead of using your potential for good, or even for bad, for _anything_ … you’ve spent the past three months sleeping with strangers and playing…” she looked into her notes on the table. “The Witcher.”

“It’s a good game,” he replied. She scowled at him.

“I understand that your parents died three years ago. Are you trying to follow them?”

His jaw clenched. He didn’t answer.

“I bailed you out of prison because I want to recruit you. If you want to do something with your life, you’ll accept, and you’ll start an intense psychological treatment.”

He frowned.

“And if I don’t?”

She looked at him like he was asking her the stupidest question in the world.

“Of course you do. Otherwise you’d be dead by now.”

He was taken aback by that.

“Mr. Ronkswood, do you think you’re the first self destructive, traumatized addict I have the displeasure of managing? Now stop acting aloof and go get your staff card.”

***

Two weeks later, he was given his own table in Q branch and a first project. Then another, and another after that, and six months later he was promoted into the main branch.

But he only saw _him_ seven months after his recruitment.

It was a Sunday, he remembered that. He only came in so late because he was on a tight deadline and his project wasn’t looking great. He was running on caffeine and sugar at that point, and this far from throwing the whole bazooka into the trash.

There were only about three other people in the branch, all in a similar state of desperate exhaustion, and the Quartermaster, who was preparing to equip an agent.

Quinn missed who the agent was and was deep in the insides of the bazooka when he came in, and honestly he didn’t care much. One thing that was made very clear by M was that he was not to sleep with anyone with a body count if he didn’t want to be a body in her count. He had to admit it was the hardest rule to abide by, but M didn’t exclude agents who _didn’t_ have a licence to kill, so there was still a fair playing field. So even though he liked to see the most dangerous and respected agents when they rarely made their way into the tech part of the building, he didn’t have time for that now.

He was just walking to his station with a fresh cup of extra strong black tea when the agent was leaving Q with a suitcase full of fun toys when their eyes met.

Quinn’s stomach made three summer saults and fell into his guts. The cup in his hand shook and some tea splashed to the ground. He forgot how to breathe.

How did he not search for him in the MI6 database? How did he not try to find him after being hired? He tried so many times in the first months after his disappearance, but never again. He knew why – he wanted to forget he ever existed, wanted to forget the pain he felt when he thought of him. Didn’t want to have a final and indisputable proof that James Bond was dead, or something worse – inaccessible. So he ignored the fact that MI6 would be able to track him down with a few keystrokes, and kept living his life in denial.

Until now.

He looked… so much older. The James in his memories was young and full of life, of potential. This James… he was a shell of what he used to be. A strong, impenetrable shell, but a shell nonetheless.

 _He killed and people died for him_ , Quinn realized.

He didn’t know what he should do. This didn’t look like the place for emotional reunions. James didn’t look like he had any emotions left. Quinn didn’t even remember the last time he felt an emotion that wasn’t numbed by depression or medication.

They moved together. James’ walk was different, too – he sauntered now, in a way that made Quinn nervous and aroused at once, because Quinn was always stupid that way. They moved, each their way, and passed each other on their way to their duties.

This was MI6. This was why their names didn’t exist outside anymore, why their lives ceased to matter outside this building. Their little reunion meant nothing in the grand scale of things.

The door closed behind James’ coat, and Quinn took the biggest tool he had at hand and smashed his bazooka into tiny pieces.

The three remaining techs all looked up from their projects to watch him destroy company property. When he was done and out of breath, he looked up to see Q standing above his desk.

“You’ll need a new bazooka,” he observed. Quinn looked down at the mess he made.

“Yes,” he agreed. “Yes I will.”

***

He researched him before he went to sleep, and almost didn’t fall asleep at all.

James Bond, 007. Licence to kill. Recruited three days after his parents’ funeral. Trained to be an agent, promoted to a Double Oh status thirteen months ago.

First mission involved a woman named Vesper. Quinn’s insides burned with jealousy.

Now on a mission in Siberia. Expected return: July.

It was December.

***

Quinn climbed the ranks at a steady pace. He found a new passion in his work, the kind he used to feel before the accident. He had a goal, a new hope he clung to like a drowning man. He knew that MI6 could give him a good life, and even though most of the time his sanity depended on medication, he believed that one day he might lead a normal life.

Although how normal could it be when you spend your working days creating weapons of mass destruction?

His bazooka was such a hit he was now supervising a whole team dedicated to what he liked to call ‘ostentatiously destructive toys he should hide from double ohs’, because he was there when 003 saw his bazooka and almost shit his trousers from happiness. Quinn thought them a bit too trigger happy.

“That’s a nice car,” he heard a familiar, although changed voice, behind him, and he froze. “Do I get to take a ride?”

His stomach had another seizure and tried to escape his body. He kept it cool on the outside, acting like he was studying the notes currently residing on a metal desk in the hangar they were in, one of the secretly MI6 owned hangars in Heathrow.

“Be my guest,” he said, not looking at him. “I’ve been wanting to test it out. Just be aware that the car is full of explosives. The second you turn the key, this whole building will explode.”

“Why Quinn, I knew you were self destructive, but I had no idea you had a dead wish.”

Quinn’s jaw clenched so hard his teeth hurt. He took his notes and walked over to the car. “Things have changed.”

He tried to do a quality check to be sure his underlings didn’t mess up, but the car was swimming before his eyes. He finally caved in and got a prescription for glasses after being hired, after Q insisted that he will not tolerate a tech with bad eyesight.

“I’m aware,” he heard James say. His voice was so much deeper and serious, it went straight to Quinn’s guts.

He was just thinking of leaving his work before he actually does detonate the car, although that was very unlikely since the compound in it was missing a key ingredient. He collected all his notes, still not looking at James, and was about to leave, when his wrist was ceased and he was pulled against a firm chest.

He remembered James being buffed, but this was a completely new feeling. James smelled like gunpowder and alcohol and it felt wrong but also so right, like coming home, like finding a favourite sweater after years of thinking you’ve lost it. And when James’ palm curled around his chin and turned his head so he had to look at him, his knees almost gave out.

James’ eyes were just as blue as he remembered them, but their colour couldn’t hide how deep and tired they got, how dangerously alert. Everyone he asked said Bond was in his best game, the most reckless but successful agent MI6 had, and how did he not know about him sooner? But Quinn could see that James was more damaged than he remembered him. His face had creases he didn’t know and wanted to learn.

And when James kissed him, it was just like before, just like when he didn’t shave for a few days after the accident, when he kissed him when Quinn cried. Quinn dropped his notes in order to run his hands through James’ short hair and press closer to him before realizing that they weren’t young boys anymore, not even young men, they were MI6 personnel and there were set rules.

He pushed away and tried to regain his composure.

“I have strict orders not to sleep with double ohs,” he said.

“Why, did you sleep with too many?” asked James.

“I think M is afraid I’ll get myself killed if I sleep with someone who does it for a living,” Quinn said.

“I have to say I’m not surprised, she always had a good eye for people with a dead wish.”

“Is that why she recruited you?”

James’ lips twisted in a small smile. “Probably.”

Quinn stepped away, which cost him all his self control.

“I have to go back to HQ.”

“I’ll drive you,” James said matter-of-factly and pulled out a car key.

“I have ride,” Quinn said, already walking out.

“No you don’t,” James fell into step with him. “I sent him away.”

Quinn clenched his jaw in annoyance.

They got into James’ car, a beautiful Aston Martin, and James took the scenic route to Vauxhal, which made Quinn even more frustrated. Sitting in the car with him was torture. He wanted desperately to look at him, to touch him, to bridge the gap between them and mend it so everything is like it used to be, but reality felt distorted. James wasn’t like he used to be. And Quinn… he was the same, but with a lot of trauma and heartbreak in the mix, and he forgot how to deal with real emotions.

They didn’t talk. James didn’t ask about his life, Quinn didn’t ask about his. He didn’t dare ask about the reason why he said yes to MI6, or why he left a grieving eighteen year old boy who was obsessed with him alone without an explanation, not even why he kissed him just now. And Quinn definitely didn’t know the answer to that question, because James looked like it didn’t affect him at all. And his kiss was… suave, skilled, and completely devoid of sentiment.

Despite the fact that they took the longer route, neither of them spoke the whole time.

Finally, they arrived at HQ. James parked the car in the sublevel car park, and they got out.

Quinn stretched his legs and ruffled his hair, thinking of just leaving without a word, when another hand went into his hair and grabbed a fistful, lightly, but still enough to shoot a lightning bolt through Quinn, and if he was still a hormonal teenager, that would be enough to undo him, but now all it did was enrage him.

“Fuck of, James!” he spun around and pushed him away. “Get the fuck away from me!”

James held up his hands in surrender.

“Quinn…” he started, but the name hurt the younger man like a knife to the guts. Before he could think about it, his fist collided with James’ left cheek.

The punch probably hurt Quinn more than James, since he was used to physical violence and Quinn never punched anyone, but the pain helped him ground himself in reality. The look on James’ face made something in him roar in satisfaction.

“I’m not some fucking mark, Bond!” he spat out. “You don’t get to waltz in here and try all the dirty tricks in the book, you don’t get to do that anymore! From now on you only touch me with my explicit consent, understood?”

James straightened up, rubbing his cheek, and gingerly nodded.

“Good,” Quinn turned on his heel and marched out of the car park.

He couldn’t shake the ghost of James’ touch for the rest of the day, but it wasn’t as it used to be. Before, when James touched him, when he caused him pain, it was because he wanted to see him melt, wanted to pleasure him. Even during the funeral, when others would call it rape, Quinn knew exactly what James was doing – he was giving him what he needed. James knew him better than anyone else.

Now though… now he felt like a stranger. Like he memorized all Quinn’s pressure points and was trained to target them. His body didn’t mould to Quinn’s like it used to.

“A little bird told me you punched a double oh,” Eve’s voice yanked him from his thoughts and he almost jumped. He was in the middle of a long code when she sat down on his table and stared at him with an incredulous expression.

Quinn liked Eve. She was a badass agent in training with a history in the military, and she looked the way models did in their free time. He was particularly fascinated with her hair and gave her the nickname “little sheep” because she was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. They had a secret pact – if she got to play with his hair, he got to play with hers. She adored him because he basically turned into a free hairstylist, and he loved her because she gave him attention and physical contact he didn’t have anywhere else.

Now, however, he just felt annoyed.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Steve was in the control room when you did it, he saw it on the CCTV camera. Tell me everything.”

He shook his head.

“Sorry Eve, personal.”

She pouted, which was so out of character he frowned at her.

“You’re not good at looking innocent, Eve,” he said and went back to his code, although he wasn’t taking it in at all.

“Well then just remember that I’m fully trained in interrogation,” she said sweetly.

“And you remember that I’m a masochist,” he gave her a similar fake smile.

“Oh trust me, I would know exactly what to do to push all your buttons. You let me too close to you to me immune to my techniques. You’d actually be a perfect mark.”

A chill went through him when he realized she was absolutely right.

“So? Why did you punch 007?” she asked again and he sighed in defeat.

“We have some… issues,” he decided to let her in on a little bit, but she could torture him to death and never get the whole story out of him. “I saw him after a long time and had some past aggression to let out.”

“On his face?” she raised her perfectly shaped eyebrows.

“Yes,” he simply said. “His face was convenient.”

She crossed her arms and glared at him. “You’re avoiding my questions.”

“You really _are_ good at interrogation,” he mocked her when his phone sent him an alert that someone was hacking into his personal records.

He was surprised when he found out it was coming from the building, and it wasn’t hard to figure out who could be trying to gain information about him.

“Do double ohs get a training in hacking?” he asked Eve.

“Yes, why?” she looked over his shoulder as he was working on his computer to counter attack, and then changed his mind and just watched the notifications pop up. If James wanted to know what happened after he disappeared, he could. There was nothing there that Quinn wouldn’t shout at him in anger. And none of the pain he could blame on him.

“I’m going to get it out of you, you know,” Eve said. “And then I’m going to make you pay for making it harder on me.”

But Quinn was too busy hacking into James’ records and looking for his phone number to listen to her.

“What do you want to know, James?” he asked when James picked up. Eve was looking at him like he was a code she needed to break, so he walked away from her, relieved when she didn’t follow.

“You could just ask me, you know,” he continued while walking towards a barely used corridor. “It’s not like _I_ have secrets from you.”

“What happened to you, Quinn?”

“What happened to me?!” Quinn’s blood boiled in his veins again. He closed the door behind him and started pacing the corridor. “I wish you were here so I could punch you again. What happened is that my family died and I was left alone in an empty house with no one to turn to because the only person I trusted left me without a word! You abandoned me when I needed you the most!”

There was silence on the other line, long enough that Quinn wondered if James was still there.

“You don’t say no to MI6,” he finally said. “You should know that.”

“You _can_ tell them to postpone!” Quinn argued. “What was so hard about telling M that if she really wants you, she’ll have to wait?”

James didn’t respond at all this time.

“Or was it just impossible to bear it with me for more than a few days?” Quinn’s voice wavered but didn’t break, which he was proud of.

“I wanted to stay,” James objected but didn’t say more.

“Then why didn’t you?” Quinn tried his hardest not to start crying. James didn’t answer.

“Fuck you, Bond.”

He hung up.

***  
James was called on another mission two days later. He didn’t bother Quinn once, which made him equal portions relieved and disappointed.

After he was gone, Quinn was summoned upstairs to see M. When he got the call, he almost shat his trousers.

“I’ve heard you have quite the way with double oh agents,” M said when he walked into her office, not even looking up from her papers. “Should I send all my agents your way if they misbehave?”

“I think we both know I’d end up dead in a ditch next week,” he said. That earned him a look.

“007 is a tough nut to crack,” she said. “He came here a different man than he is now. I hope you understand that.”

He nodded. That was the only thing he understood.

“You have a future, Mr. Ronkswood,” she said. “A future in this organization that is your responsibility to see through. If you let James Bond destroy you, I will not pick you up again.”

Quinn nodded. He didn’t know what to say to that. That he won’t let James destroy him? That was ludicrous. That he won’t let him close? Quinn wanted nothing more than to have James close. And if it came to it, no threats about a ruined career would stop him.

“Is that all?” he asked instead. Her expression turned sour, but she nodded.

***

The morning he found him in his flat, he woke up to the sound of rain hitting his windows.

He lay in his bed for a while, thinking of deadlines and new projects, until his bladder forced him to go to the bathroom and once he was out of bed, he decided to wake up completely and make himself tea.

He walked out of his bedroom into his living room slash kitchen, and almost got a heart attack when he found a wet but completely composed James Bond sitting on his sofa.

“Fuck!” he exclaimed, stumbling into the wall. He stared at Bond for a second, then asked: “Is this what you do now? Break into people’s flats?”

Bond didn’t lose his composure one bit. “I don’t normally bring them donuts,” he said, motioning to the Sainsbury’s paper bag on the coffee table.

“You couldn’t bring coffee, too?” Quinn asked gingerly and went to the kitchen counter. He lived in a single studio that cost him a fortune but was his own little fortress, and it irked him that James was able to walk in like to a piano lesson. He bought the flat with his inheritance money and equipped it with the best security systems in the world. Apparently, that wasn’t enough to keep out one determined agent.

“You know, if you wanted to talk, you could’ve called,” he said while making tea. “You didn’t have to climb through the window.”

“Well, you’re the one who taught me to do that,” James drawled. Quinn cursed himself for not seeing that coming.

He made tea for them both because he remembered that James used to like it, and even though his file said he switched to much stronger drinks, he wasn’t about to get drunk with James Bond at seven in the morning.

The flat soon started smelling of herbs. One thing Quinn couldn’t stop doing after his parents died was make tea the way his mother used to. It was an expensive hobby in London, but he was paid enough to live comfortably since he didn’t have to pay rent, so he indulged.

He put a steaming cup in front of James and sat down into an armchair across from him. He took the bag – custard filled doughnuts, not even his favourites.

“Did you seriously bring me discounted sweets from Sainsbury’s?” he asked incredulously.

“Nothing else was open,” James replied, taking a sip from his tea. Quinn still had the habit of adding cold water to it.

“

Quinn opened the bag, took one doughnut out, and put it back on the table, facing James.

“When did you come back from your mission?” Quinn asked. It’s been four months since he saw him last.

“Three hours ago,” James responded.

“And your first stop was my flat?”

“No, my first stop was your local Sainsbury’s express. Your flat was second.” Quinn gave him a tired look. James gave in. “I wanted to talk.”

“Then talk.”

He ate the little under-baked ball and reached for another one, waiting. James took another sip from his tea.

“Six makes me go to compulsory therapy,” James finally said. “I suppose you’ve been their subject, too, maybe you go to Theresa?” he looked at Quinn questioningly and Quinn nodded. “Theresa thinks,” James continued. “… that I felt guilty for sleeping with you all those years, and for the way I treated you at the funeral, and that I wanted to leave and start anew, and maybe punish myself by taking a risky job that could get me killed before I reach forty.”

He took another sip. Quinn was hanging on every his word but pretending to be aloof. He was probably doing a horrible job at it.

“I think that’s bullshit,” James continued. “What I know is that I couldn’t see you suffer through the same thing I went through. I was falling asleep with the image of my parents burned into my brain and I thought that leaving would make life easier for the both of us.”

“How?” Quinn urged.

“I don’t know. I just needed to escape. And when I had time to cool off and think better of it, there was no coming back.”

Finally, probably to have something to do with his mouth, he took a doughnut from the bag and started eating.

“Well Theresa thinks that you have royally fucked me up,” Quinn said after a while.

They ate in silence for a few moments.

“I hear about Alec,” Quinn said. James nodded.

“He made his choice, too.”

Alec apparently joined MI6 too, and lasted a whole year until Russia contacted him and it turned out that he was a sleeping agent. He was James’ first kill.

“And then the woman,” Quinn continued and James’ face went just as stone cold as Quinn’s stomach did when he saw the change. “Must have been a rough month for you.”

James put the tea on the table a bit too quickly and it spilled.

“How long did you know her?” Quinn’s mouth twisted into a cruel mockery of a smile. “A week? And she gets to be in your file forever. You must have really loved her.”

James was glaring daggers at him.

“You left me and you killed her,” Quinn went on. “I should be glad you didn’t love me more, I’d be dead a long time ago.”

“Shut up,” James growled.

Quinn stared back with as much venom as he could muster while his heart was crying.

“I was young and stupid and I thought I could have with her what I had with you,” James finally admitted. “I was wrong and paid the price.”

Quinn stared into his tea, frowning.

“What did you have with me?” he finally found the courage to ask. When James didn’t answer, he looked up, fixing him with a look. James was clearly fighting some internal battle.

Finally, his jaw unclenched, and he said: “I was happy with you.”

The tears that were brimming just under Quinn’s eyelids almost spilled right then, but he took a deep breath and pushed them down. He put the tea down and stood up.

“You should have stayed with me then,” he said and walked back into his bedroom.

When he emerged, clean shaven and dressed for work, James was gone, only the tea, an empty paper bag coated in sugar, and an open window allowing rain to come in were a sign he was ever there.

***

James’ missions reminded Quinn of his time with the navy and how he used to follow him around the world to be with him at least for a few days. Now it was James who came back to him, but their reunions were always bitter and cold. Quinn realized, belatedly, that the reason James tried to sleep with him immediately was because he didn’t know what to do with him. Maybe he hoped that their relationship will continue the way it was before? Quinn honestly didn’t know. He had hard time understanding what was going on in James’ head.

Every few months, there was a few days, sometimes weeks, of awkward meetings in the hallways and cold mornings when Quinn hates himself for how hopeful he is that when he walks out of his bedroom, James will be sitting on his sofa. But he never does, and Quinn never shows him how he misses him when they meet.

“I have my first mission as a double oh!” Eve told him excitedly one day when they met for lunch.

“You’ve been going on missions for the past year,” he objected, chewing on his sandwich.

“Those were regular missions, this is a double oh mission,” he explained.

“What’s the difference?”

“I get to kill people,” she shrugged. He wondered if she felt trepidation. If she killed, she’d become a licenced killer.

“And I’m going with 007,” she added as if by the way, but he knew she was watching him.

“Great,” he said. “Enjoy his light nature and humorous attitude.”

She gave him an amused look.

“We’re going on Monday,” she said, opening her salad box. “Just so you know.”

“Eat your salad, Eve,” he told her exasperatedly.

***

The thing about an eidetic memory was that it couldn’t just be shut off. It was always working overtime, always on fleek, if Quinn liked it or not. Oh yes, he was great at forgetting to water the plants and eat three meals a day, but you could wake him up at three in the morning and he’d be able to recite a code he wrote seven years ago.

That’s why it was almost impossible for him to not notice when the day of James’ birthday rolled out.

It was two days before Eve’s and his mission, on a Saturday. He had a day off but was on call in case of emergencies, and he spent the full first hour staring at his phone, not able to decide if she should or shouldn’t call him.

No. He knew he shouldn’t call him. If he wanted to keep his distance like his common sense was telling him to, he shouldn’t contact him. But Quinn was always very bad at listening to his common sense.

That’s why he ended up sending him a single text – _happy birthday._

There was no answer. He didn’t know if he wanted one or not.

He rolled out of bed, made tea, buttered a toast, and was sitting on his sofa reading his Facebook feed when there was a knock on the door. He got up, thinking it would be Eve because she would drop by sometimes completely unannounced and sometimes unwanted, and opened the door to James Bond.

“Wow,” he said, surprised. “What did I do to deserve a knock instead of a burglary?”

James walked in without an invitation and closed the door behind him – apparently that was where his efforts at a polite conduct ended.

“I liked your message,” James said.

“There wasn’t much to it,” Quinn answered, stepping back. There was something about the agent – the look on his face maybe, or the walk… yes, definitely the walk. James was rounding him up like a prey.

“I think we both know there was quite a lot to it,” James drawled. Quinn stumbled back and hit the wall.

“I told you you can’t touch me without…”

“I’m not touching you,” James interrupted him. From this distance, Quinn could smell his cologne. He really stepped up his game in that field.

“Do you want me to be touching you?” James murmured. Quinn took in a shaky breath and James smirked.

“I…” Quinn started, so tempted but so apprehensive. James was so close he could feel his body heat.

“I don’t want you to fuck me and leave,” he said and he felt like a huge weight fell off of his heart. He finally got to say what he wanted to say ever since he was sixteen. He fought it before, told himself it was a stupid sentiment, that he wasn’t some blushing virgin, he was an unfeeling IT genius… maybe it was the therapy talking, but he now knew better.

He wanted to slip away and go back to his tea the smell of which was calling him like a security blanket, but James caught his arm and pulled him back.

He let him, too confused to object, and found himself in an embrace much more tender than he anticipated. James was still very slightly taller, and when he put his arm around the small of Quinn’s back and his other hand went into his hair, not pulling, but gently playing, he felt like a young boy again. James pressed his lips against his temple and Quinn’s eyes closed in bliss.

They just stood there. Breathing. Remembering. If Quinn was a more sentimental man, he’d tell James how he missed him. He liked to think that the same applied to James.

“I didn’t leave because I didn’t love you,” James rasped. “I left because I couldn’t bare seeing you suffer. And because I was a bloody coward.”

“Are you still a coward?” Quinn asked.

James was silent for a while, enough to scare Quinn into thinking he might say yes.

Then, the older man sighed deeply into his hair, and said: “I tried being brave and it broke my heart again. I swore never to trust anyone again.”

Quinn nodded.

“I swore as well and suffered ever since. I’m starting to think that I’d rather be happy for a while before it gets broken again. That seems inevitable.”

James gave him a kiss, long and languid, one that made Quinn’s knees buckle. For a second, James’ strength was the only thing holding him up.

“Stay,” Quinn pleaded. “Stay and just… be. Let’s talk, like we used to.”

James nodded and kissed him again. “I’m not sure I will be able to keep my hands off of you,” he warned.

“I don’t want you to,” Quinn smiled.

They spent the day together, talking, touching, kissing, talking, eating, talking. About heartbreak, depression, the lowest moments of their lives. James took coaxing to talk. Quinn understood why when he told him about Vesper and Alec.

“I can’t prove to you that I’m not a sleeping agent… or an active one,” Quinn said, lying by his side on the couch. “But just imagine that for a second, will you?” he grinned at him, but James’ face grew darker. Quinn’s grin disappeared and a worried look replaced it. James looked down at him and his face relaxed a little, but Quinn only then understood the depth of James’ paranoia.

“I will probably die either by an enemy’s or an ally’s hand,” James said. “And if it’s by your hand… I suppose I owe it to you.”

He kissed him and Quinn believed him. He also made it his mission in life to make James trust him, and to never betray him.

James ended up sleeping over, with Quinn in his arms.

***

Quinn woke up to a ringing phone and something warm and tough moving underneath him. He realized what it was when he heard James’ raspy voice answer the phone call. He shifted and James’ hand immediately went into his hair, placating him.

“What?” James’ raspy voice asked just above his ear, and his stomach filled with butterflies, which very quickly turned into icicle when he heard Eve’s business-like voice through the speaker.

“The drive was stolen, I’m on my way to your flat now,” she said. James cursed.

“I’m not there,” he said. “Westcott House, Vauxhall.”

He was already moving, with Quinn hanging onto him like koala bear onto a tree.

“That’s Quinn’s flat,” he heard Eve realize.

“Is it?” James asked. “What a funny coincidence.”

Quinn smirked. James turned off the phone and looked down at him. “Seems I’ve got a job to do.”

Quinn nodded gingerly.

Quinn watched as he put on his trousers and suit jacket, suddenly very aware of the fact that James was going into action that could potentially kill him, and he felt trapped. Not trapped by James, not by the idea of being with him. He could never escape the trap he found himself in by leaving James. He was trapped by his feelings towards him. Because wherever he’d go, however long he’d be away from him, he’d always love him, and he was doomed to have his life destroyed by grief again when James died.

James took one look at him and knew. He walked over to him, took him into his arms, and kissed him deeply.

“You are ruining your image of a robot,” Quinn tried to make light of the situation.

“Oh I am robot,” James smiled. “Your robot.”

“So sappy,” Quinn laughed, pushing him away. “Go be a terminator.”

“A terminator?” James raised his eyebrows. Quinn smiled.

“Yeah. Because if you’re a terminator, you’ll be back.”

James shook his head in exasperation. “That’s the worst joke you’ve ever made.”

“Well, I don’t have much practice,” Quinn’s growing good mood was killed when a car honked outside and the gravity of the situation flooded back into the room like a bad smell.

“Go,” he prompted James.

He watched through the window as he got into the car and Eve drove them away in a speed twenty miles above the limit. She almost killed an old lady on her speedy retreat.

Thirty minutes later he got the call to run to MI6 because of an emergency operation that could cost lives of all agents overseas. Seven hours later he was in M’s office amongst several other techs when James Bond fell off of a bridge in Turkey.

***

M tried ordering him to go on leave but he kept showing up at the office during the night instead, and when he finally got on her radar, she just let him do what he wanted. What he wanted was to drive himself into an early grave, which worked great for the interests of MI6, and M was never above exploitation and mild misconduct.

He stopped sleeping, eating, ran on coffee and his special tea, and worked twenty hours a day. Going to sleep was unacceptable, as sleep meant dreams, and dreams meant nightmares about his dying parents and dying friends and dying James.

He stopped speaking unless giving commands. It wasn’t hard. He didn’t have many friends in the office who would be close enough to try harder, and he quickly alienated all those who even liked him. The only person who could nurture him to life again was the one person he couldn’t face.

Eve.

He… he didn’t hate her. He didn’t have the emotional range to hate her right now. He just couldn’t stand being in the same space with her. It wasn’t personal. It wasn’t her fault that James was fighting someone on a moving train above a canyon with a shot wound in his shoulder. It wasn’t even her fault that she shot him – the target was extremely small and tangled with James, and she did what she could to challenge the command. It wasn’t her fault and she wanted to help, but she reminded him of those two words she said, the words he kept hearing in his nightmares over and over again.

Agent down.

He kept jumping between wishing he never had reconciled with James, and being grateful that he had. It hurt so much more to have lost him when things were finally taking a turn for the better, but it would have felt so much worse if he had the regret of never showing him how much he loved him. He went through it once before with his parents. Never again.

So when Eve tried to apologize, he blacked her out. He blacked everything out. The only reason he didn’t go on a self destructive rampage was that he was too tired for any of that nonsense. He was too tired to care, too tired to rage, too tired to pretend like therapy would do any good. And after a few weeks, the few people in MI6 who cared, including M, stopped trying.

His work was better than ever before. It was the only thing that kept him sane. While working, he would manage to forget, and he craved that more than any drug. He lost himself in code and machinery and guns and cars and anything he managed to get his hands on, and he hoped to become one with them.

***

When M turned on the light that night, she was expecting an uneventful night, a tumbler of scotch, and a delivery from the local Thai place, not an angry, unshaven and smelly agent drinking said scotch in her dining area.

“What the bloody hell are you doing here?” she angrily gasped when she saw him. He took a sip from his scotch.

“The job is done,” he said gravely. “I’ve covered your arse. Again.”

She walked up to the table separating them.

“He was a threat to us all, not just to me, and you know it.”

“He wouldn’t have been a threat to anyone had you done your job correctly all those years ago,” he growled. “Maybe if you treated your agents with more respect, we wouldn’t be going rouge and trying to pay you back.”

He moved away from the window and towards her. “What was it that you said again? Take the bloody shot?”

“It was my call as the head of the agency,” she tilted her chin up slightly to show she doesn’t fear him or his accusations.

“And when did you make the call not to notify me of my sudden death?” James asked mockingly.

“I am sorry about that,” she admitted. “I meant for you to find out on the plane there but things have changed.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “Things have changed,” he knew she understood what he meant. “How is he?”

“He’s doing his job.”

“That’s not what I’m asking.”

“The job was more important than your childhood boyfriend, Bond,” she erupted. “We both know the rules of the game, we’ve been playing it long enough.”

“Maybe too long.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“I am.”

They stared at each other for several moments, unblinking.

“You know,” he put the tumbler on the table. “I’ve been quite enjoying death. You should try it sometime. Lends a bit of perspective,” he walked towards her.

“You’ve tried to quit before,” she said. “Did you not learn your lesson?”

“Oh yes, I have,” he looked her in the eyes – this up close, he had the full advantage of his height against her. “Never trust a bitch who pretends to care about you.”

He was almost by the door when she called after him.

“He won’t go. He’s been named the Quartermaster of MI6. If he’s at least half as smart as he looks, he won’t abandon his post.”

He didn’t answer. This wasn’t a battle he had to win.

“My resignation is already on your table,” he said before he closed the door.

***

Q was named Quartermaster two months after James’ death.

It was a grim occasion on which M told him that his old Q has left active service because of his worsening condition – Quinn supposed it was no surprise that he didn’t notice his Parkinson’s given the state he was in – and that Quinn was now the best candidate for the job. Quinn, being the emotional wreck he was, took the news at face value and left to work on some more projects. As the week progressed, he realized that being Q was no different to his old position, and that he was being underpaid for several months doing old Q’s job while the old man was hanging around looking pretty.

Three months after James’ death (which became Q’s orientation point in time), he was given another chance to breathe.

“I want the report on 005’s car,” he was saying to one of the techs from the automobile department. “Particularly detailed when it comes to the enhancements in the back wheels. By the end of the day, understood? I’m here, Ronald, what are you…” he turned, annoyed, to see what the tech has been staring at, and froze on the spot.

Towards him was walking none other than James Bond himself. Dressed in some horrendous clothing that looked like he spent a month in it non stop, with an unkempt stubble that was slowly turning into a beard, and none of his usual swagger.

Quinn forgot how to breathe for a moment.

“I was waiting at your flat, but it seemed like you don’t frequent it anymore,” James said when he was close enough for Quinn to hear him.

“You look horrible,” James continued when he stood in front of the younger man. Then, for a loss of something better to say, he added: “For the record, it wasn’t my idea to be dead.”

“Who? Quinn found a way to speak and had a lot of questions.

“M,” James answered. “And I quit.”

Quinn took a deep breath in.

“Good. I don’t know if you’re aware how much paperwork goes into saving England, but I’m pretty tired of it. I’ve been thinking of going rogue.”

James smiled.

“That sounds wonderful.”

Sometimes, having a brain that worked overtime was a good thing. Sometimes it worked quicker than emotions did. Because Quinn’s emotions were currently held in some sort of a bubble that waited to be burst. And burst it did, when James Bond took him into his arms, and kissed him in front of the whole of Q branch, and thanks to CCTV cameras and a gossip loving security team, effectively in front of the whole of MI6.

That day, M thought of retiring for the first time in her career. Because as uncertain as future might be, and as powerful as her position allowed her to be,

_Hell hath no fury like an agent and his quartermaster._


End file.
